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 Two explosions tore through Brussels airport on Tuesday morning, in
what Belgian public broadcaster VRT called a suicide attack, and
another blast struck a metro station in the capital shortly
afterwards. At least 26 people died in the attack.
European markets fell, while traditional safe havens gold and
government bonds firmed up as reports of the events in the de facto
capital of the European Union unfolded. Airline and travel-related
stocks were the worst hit.
Shares of American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines and
United Continental Holdings were down between 3.4 percent and
1.1 percent in premarket trading.
Delta and United Airlines rerouted flights to other locations
following the attacks.
Gold rose 1 percent to $1,255 an ounce, while oil prices were swept
lower by investor nervousness.
"It's a market that's on the edge right now, but we're not seeing
investors panicking," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at
First Standard Financial in New York.
S&P 500 e-minis were down 7 points, or 0.34 percent, with
205,633 contracts traded at 7:42 a.m. ET. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were
down 18 points, or 0.41 percent, on volume of 26,057 contracts. Dow
e-minis were down 42 points, or 0.24 percent, with 31,562
contracts changing hands.
Cruise operator Carnival Corp's shares were down 3.6 percent at $48,
while travel-website operator Expedia was off 2.5 percent at $108.08
and peer Priceline fell 1 percent to $1336.60.
For financial markets, the events in Brussels come at a time when
liquidity is starting to dry up ahead of the Easter holiday and
investors are planning to cash in on a steep rally in stocks over
the last few weeks.
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The S&P 500 has risen about 8 percent in the past five weeks and is
about 4 percent away from its all-time high.
"We're getting to the point in time where we’re overbought in the
short run. I wouldn’t be surprised heading to the long weekend if we
saw some profit taking," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at
Wunderlich Securities in New York.
The Brussels attacks eclipsed encouraging economic data out of the
euro zone, while Asian shares had faltered earlier over hints from
U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers about an earlier-than-expected
increase in interest rates.
(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru,;
Editing by Don Sebastian)
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