- •The US Department of Labor on Thursday announced that the number of initial jobless claims for the week ending May 30 fell by 246,000 to stand at 1.88 million. The total number of jobless claims over the last 11 weeks is now well over 42 million.
- •Despite protests across the United States, the Nasdaq 100 Index on Thursday touched a new record high hitting 9,741 points mainly driven by technology companies.
- •ZoomInfo, a subscription-based software as a service (SaaS) firm headquartered in Vancouver, Washington on Thursday began trading on the Nasdaq at $40 per share. The company is different from Zoom Video Communications which gained popularity due to lockdown and restrictions which has forced people to work from home.
- •Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk on Thursday commented on Twitter that monopolies like Amazon should be broken up. Musk was responding to a tweet by Ex-New York Times reporter Alex Berenson after Amazon’s Kindle refused to release his book on the COVID19 pandemic.
- •Equities on major stock markets in Europe were higher in premarket trade on Friday after Thursday’s announcement by the European Central Bank (ECB) to increase its pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) by €600 billion to a total of €1.35 trillion. The bank also said it would keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the record low level of zero per cent.
