Stock futures rise after Trump motorcade appearance

Stock futures rose Sunday evening in overnight trading shortly after President Trump made an appearance in a motorcade outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he is recovering from the coronavirus.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 150 points, while S&P 500 futures and the Nasdaq 100 futures both rose about 0.5 percent. 

President Trump tweeted a video earlier Sunday saying he was “getting great reports from the doctors.” He then waved to supporters outside the hospital in a brief outing in a motorcade with Secret Service. 

Replying to a tweet asking why Trump, while sick with COVID-19, would leave the hospital, Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal tweeted: “Because futures start trading at 6pm East Coast time.”

Et voila pic.twitter.com/rlDlINOyyH

— Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) October 4, 2020

The market has been increasingly volatile in recent months amid election talk, debate on Capitol Hill surrounding an upcoming COVID-19 stimulus package, and a pandemic that shows no signs of subsiding. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened Friday, after Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, with a loss of roughly 400 points, falling 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 index fell 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite fell 2 percent.