S&P 500: Futures fade upside strength near three-week top above 3,180

• S&P 500 Futures takes a U-turn from 3,198.38, the highest since June 19.
• Market sentiment sours as virus spread continues with US-China tussle.
• Expectations of stimulus, vaccine fails to repeat Friday’s performance amid a light calendar.

S&P 500 Futures decline to 3,184.38 as markets in Tokyo open for the week’s trading on Monday. The risk barometer recently came under pressure as global traders reassessed Friday’s risk-on sentiment that initially propelled the quote to the multi-day high. In doing so, the derivative repeats its recent pattern of alternating gains with the losses establishes since July 02.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports record high daily new cases on Sunday, with the latest figures crossing 230,370. With this, the global count rises further beyond 13.00 million with over 565,000 death toll. The US, Brazil and India, unfortunately, lead the global nations to suffer due to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Among the US states, Florida and Texas are the front runners with the recent updates suggesting over 15,000 new cases from the further. Additionally, Texas marked 8,196 new cases with 3.3% daily rise versus a 3.9% 7-day average.

Looking to the Sino-American tussle, the US recently warned its citizens living in China of arbitrary arrests, like Aussie policymakers did last-week. Following that, Beijing criticized the Trump administration backed plans to increase presence in Asia while also warning of its negative implications. Even so, the Wall Street Journal’s piece citing the US decision-makers’ inability to levy harshest sanctions on China because of the Hong Kong security law, mainly due to the city’s status as a financial hub, limits the risk-off mood.

It should also be noted that the global efforts to find a cure to the pandemic has recently offered upbeat results from the clinical trials and have offered additional barrier for the pessimists. Recently, the much-championed Remdesivir marked positive results over the third stage of trials and helped to cut the death toll, as per the research results published Friday.

Other than the virus news, Sino-American tension, expectations that the global policymakers are inching closer to another round of monetary and fiscal supports also probed the risk aversion wave.

Amid all these catalysts, the US 10-year Treasury yields refrain from extending Friday’s gains while taking rounds to 0.63% whereas Japan’s Nikkei rises 1.4% as we write.