This archive report was first published on 5 June 2020.
On Thursday, the US Department of Labor announced a significant drop in initial jobless claims, with the number falling by 246,000 to 1.88 million for the week ending May 30. This brings the total number of jobless claims over the last 11 weeks to over 42 million.
Despite protests across the United States, the Nasdaq 100 Index reached a new record high, hitting 9,741 points, largely driven by technology companies.
ZoomInfo, a subscription-based software as a service (SaaS) firm headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, began trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday at $40 per share. It's worth noting that ZoomInfo is different from Zoom Video Communications, which gained popularity due to lockdown and restrictions that forced people to work from home.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc, took to Twitter to comment on the growing influence of monopolies, stating that they should be broken up. This came in response to a tweet by Ex-New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, who had issues with Amazon's Kindle refusing to release his book on the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the European front, equities on major stock markets were higher in premarket trade on Friday, following Thursday's announcement by the European Central Bank (ECB) to increase its pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) by €600 billion to a total of €1.35 trillion. The bank also stated that it would keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the record low level of zero per cent.
