The announcement from the US FDA of an “emergency use authorization” came on the eve of the Republican National Convention, where Mr Trump will be nominated to lead his party for four more years. E-Mini futures for the S&P500 ESc1 gained 0.3 percent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS jumped 0.65 percent, moving toward a six-month high touched last week.
Japan’s Nikkei .N225 reversed early losses to be last up 0.4 percent. Chinese shares rose too with the blue-chip CSI 300 index .CSI300 adding 0.8 percent.
South Korea’s KOSPI .KS11, which has been on a slippery slope since hitting a more than two-year peak earlier this month, climbed 0.9 percent.
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6.22am update: Global dividend plunge to be worst since financial crisis
The coronavirus crisis will see the world’s biggest firms slash dividend payouts between 17-23 percent this year or what could be as much $400 billion(305.44 billion pounds), a new report has shown.
Global dividend payments plunged $108 billion to $382 billion in the second quarter of the year, fund manager Janus Henderson has calculated, equating to a 22 percent year-on-year drop which will be the worst since at least 2009.
All regions saw lower payouts except North America, where Canadian payments proved to be resilient. Worldwide, 27 percent of firms cut their dividends, while worst affected Europe saw more than half do so and two thirds of those cancel them outright.
“2020 will see the worst outcome for global dividends since the global financial crisis,” Janus Henderson said in a report published on Monday.
“We now expect headline global dividends to fall 17 percent in a best-case scenario, paying $1.18 trillion… Our worst-case scenario could see payouts drop 23 percent to $1.10 trillion.”