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1. Dow futures rose more than 200 points on Monday following Friday’s blowout job report. While the US stock market was closed on Good Friday, the government continued to release its monthly employment data. The number of non-farm workers rose 916,000 last month, a much stronger number than expected and the highest number since the 1.58 million added in August 2020, as states expanded their economies a year after the pandemic and Covid vaccinations began further opened. The 10-year government bond yield rose higher on Monday but stayed below its recent 14-month high. On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 1.2% to close above 4,000 for the first time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% but did not hit the record high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.8% and was within 4.6% of its record high in February.
2. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday will call for a minimum tax for businesses around the world to keep businesses from moving to find lower tax rates. “We are working with the G20 countries to agree on a global minimum tax rate for companies that can stop the race to the bottom,” Yellen will report on Monday morning at a conference of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This comes from a confirmed report by Axios from CNBC. The remarks come as President Joe Biden tries to raise the corporate tax rate to fund a $ 2 trillion infrastructure improvement plan.
3. Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt on Sunday called on the president to cut his infrastructure plan to around $ 615 billion and focus on rebuilding physical infrastructure such as roads and bridges. The fourth-placed GOP Senator argued on Fox News Sunday that only 30% of Biden’s proposal focused on traditional infrastructure. Blunt said a price cut would allow the White House to run the bill through both houses of Congress. Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said last week the $ 2 trillion package will not receive Republican support.
4. GameStop fell 14% on the Monday leading up to its IPO after it announced it would sell up to 3.5 million shares as the video game retailer plans to capitalize on its share surge after a trading frenzy sparked by Reddit earlier this year. GameStop announced that it would use the proceeds from the share offering to accelerate the transition of its business model to e-commerce. This plan is led by a top shareholder and board member, Ryan Cohen, co-founder of online pet dealer Chewy. GameStop closed at $ 191 per share on Thursday. It traded up to $ 483 in late January. Before Reddit trading hit, the stock started the year under $ 20.
Tesla shares rose more than 7% in the pre-market after the electric automaker announced on Friday that it had shipped nearly 185,000 vehicles in the first quarter. This is a record for the Elon Musk-run company and above estimates for 168,000 deliveries. All vehicles produced in the quarter were Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossover SUVs. Tesla did not produce any of its more expensive Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. However, 2,020 Model S and X vehicles were delivered from inventory. Tesla’s most recent shipments were up more than 100% over the same period last year.
5. The US hired Johnson & Johnson to build the Emergent BioSolutions facility, which ruined 15 million doses of the drug maker’s unique Covid vaccine, a senior health official said Saturday. The government also banned AstraZeneca from using the facility. According to the New York Times, Emergent BioSolutions employees at the facility in question mixed mixed ingredients for the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines. AstraZeneca, whose vaccine has not been approved in the US, said it will work with the Biden administration to find an alternative manufacturing location.
– Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. Get the latest information on the pandemic on CNBC’s coronavirus blog.
