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By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- The city that never sleeps but which closed down for Covid is reopening for business. The news on the Covid front from the U.S. sunbelt is less encouraging, though, and the virus continues to spread rapidly in Latin America. Stocks are set to open moderately higher on a light day for economic and corporate news, and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will host its Worldwide Developers Conference under the cloud of a new antitrust investigation. Germany's fallen fintech star Wirecard is fighting for survival. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Monday, June 22nd.
1. New York gets back to work
Up to another 300,000 New York City residents will head back to work on Monday as the city enters phase 2 of its reopening in the wake of its battle with the Covid-19 coronavirus.
The new phase of reopening includes in-store retail, hair salons, offices, real estate, vehicle sales, rentals and leases, commercial building management and retail rental, repair and cleaning.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has approved restaurants to use sidewalks or kerbside parking spaces for outdoor dining, amid evidence that viral transmission is much lower outdoors. All establishments must still follow social distancing rules, with masks required of both staff and customers when they are within six feet of people.
New York was hit worse than any other part of the U.S. by the virus’ first wave, the worst affected region of the U.S., accounting for around one quarter of the 120,000 U.S. deaths recorded so far during the pandemic.
2. Virus recedes in Beijing, advances in LatAm and U.S. Sunbelt
New York isn’t the only place relaxing its Covid rules today. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is also expected to announce fresh measures to reopen the economy. In addition, the Chinese capital of Beijing reported only seven new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, suggesting that its typically robust reaction to last week’s outbreak has had positive effects.
However, the virus hasn’t gone away. Brazil passed the 50,000 milestone for deaths at the weekend, while Mexico, which began reopening its economy last week, posted its second-highest daily number of new cases.
Across the U.S. ‘sun belt’ too, case numbers have continued to rise, with California, Florida and Texas all reporting over 4,000 new cases on Sunday.
At his first re-election campaign rally on Friday, President Donald Trump said he had told his aides to slow down the rate of testing for Covid-19, a comment that his aides subsequently played down as “light-hearted”.
3. Stocks set to open higher
U.S. stocks are set to open higher, with the reopening narrative dominating the second-wave fears that pushed major indices lower on Friday.