Wall Street heads for higher open

US indices are expected to add to Friday’s gains this afternoon. The Dow Jones industrial average is tipped to open at around 28,176, up 246 points. The S&P 500 is expected to start at 3,424, up 27 points while the NASDAQ Composite is seen starting at 11,670, up 358 points. With the coronavirus (COVID-19) very much in the news after President Trump’s latest blast at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which he effectively accused of allowing people to die as part of a bizarre campaign to sabotage his election campaign, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported that the USA reported 34,600 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, down 17.8% on the 42,000 new cases reported a week earlier. “Over the past week, confirmed new cases have fallen by 16%. The seven-day average number of new cases is falling steadily and now stands at 42.6K, down 37% from the July 22 peak, 67.3K,”observed Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Some of the fall in confirmed cases, however, reflects the drop in testing since its mid-July peak. The seven-day moving average number of tests has fallen by some 18% from the peak, and the proportion of positive tests appears to be stuck at just over 6%. “Still, the reported drop in new cases is accompanied by a steady downward trend in hospitalisations, and deaths are nudging down slowly too. Hospitalisations in Arizona, at the leading edge of the second wave in the South, are down by 68% from their mid-July peak,” Shepherdson added. In contrast, UK cases have risen steadily in recent weeks, but the national data appear to have flattened over the past week, Shepherdson noted. “This might not last, given substantial outbreaks in some cities and the impending re-opening of schools, later than in many continental European countries,” he remarked. Traders in the US are waiting for the Republican party’s Trumpian lovefest to start this week as well as the annual meeting – to be held virtually this year – of central bankers (not [necessarily] rhyming slang) in Jackson Hole. “With the recent FOMC [Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee] minutes failing to ignite any spark around new stimulus measures or extraordinary measures coming into play, there is a feeling we could see Powell [the Fed’s president] lay out a strategy of average inflation targeting, which could allow for above 2% inflation to account for the below target levels we are currently seeing. Such a move to allow inflation to run above target would likely extend the amount of time the Fed could retain an ultra-easy monetary policy stance without being hamstrung by rising inflation,” suggested Joshua Mahony at IG Group. Four things to watch for on Monday: More share price reaction from pharmaceutical stocks after Donald Trump said he may order the FDA to approve a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and distributed by UK pharma firm AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN) (NYSE:AZN). In a similar vein, recent FDA approval for the use of convalescent plasma, an antibody-rich blood component taken from recovered coronavirus patients, could also boost sentiment further if more news on the impact of the approval arises Any updates ahead of the Jackson Hole conference, hosted by the Kansas City Fed, which starts on Thursday and could shed some light on the next moves from the Federal Reserve as it continues to grapple with the economic fallout of the pandemic Possible political developments ahead of the start of the Republican National Convention, which kicks off on Tuesday, as well as any fallout from the resignation of Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway