Futures choppy as U.S. shutdown extension weighs

[March 30, 2020]    By Uday Sampath Kumar
 
 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures see-sawed on Monday after a strong recovery last week, as President Donald Trump extended his stay-at-home guidelines until the end of April, raising fears of a larger economic hit from the slump in business activity.

NYSE-AMEX Options floor traders from TradeMas Inc. work in an off-site trading office built when the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closed, due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Trump on Sunday dropped a hotly criticized plan to get the economy up and running by mid April after a top medical adviser said more than 100,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus outbreak if mitigation measures were not successful.

Oil prices fell to an 18-year low as demand dropped on fears of the economic damage from the outbreak.

At 05:48 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were down 24 points, or 0.11%, S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were up 1.5 points, or 0.06% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were up 24.25 points, or 0.32%.

SPDR S&P 500 ETFs <SPY.P> were down 0.28%.

The S&P 500 index <.SPX> closed down 3.37% at 2,541.47​ on Friday.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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