Week In Review: How Trump's Policies Moved Stocks - Sunday, March 15

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Donald Trump and his administration with this weekly recap compiled by The Fly:

1. STATE OF EMERGENCY: On Friday, President Trump announced that he has declared a state of emergency concerning the COVID-19 outbreak. The declaration allows $50 billion to be used for virus response, Trump announced during a press conference from The White House. He also announced stimulus measures, including waiving federal student loan interest payments until further notice and making oil purchases for the national strategic reserve, adding that "quite a few other steps" will be forthcoming to help the economy.

Meanwhile, the House passed a coronavirus relief plan after hours of talks between Democrats and the Trump administration on how to blunt the economic damage of the global epidemic, CNBC's Jacob Pramuk writes.

2. TRAVEL FROM EUROPE RESTRICTED: President Trump announced on Wednesday that he will significantly restrict travel from Europe to the U.S. for the next 30 days. The President is issuing a proclamation under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict travel to the United States from foreign nationals who have recently been in certain European countries. Section 212(f) of the INA only applies to the movement of human beings, not goods or cargo.

The restriction applies to foreign nationals who have been in the Schengen Area, 26 countries in Europe with open borders agreements, in the last 14 days. Those who are exempt from these restrictions, such as American citizens, will be directed to a limited number of airports where screening can take place. Publicly traded airlines include Alaska Air (ALK), American Airlines (AAL), Delta Air Lines (DAL), JetBlue (JBLU), Southwest (LUV), Spirit Airlines (SAVE) and United Airlines (UAL).

3. HEALTH INSURERS: Shares of health insurers were higher earlier this week after a transcript of comments made by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence was released by the White House. In the transcript, Pence was quoted as having said that, "Pharmaceutical companies are already working, literally around the clock, on the development of therapeutics; that will be medicines that can bring relief to people that contract the coronavirus. And I know how pleased the President was to learn that the commercial labs in this country, led by companies like LabCorp [LH] and Quest [DGX], have already brought a test forward and are taking that to market effective [Monday]. This week, at the President's direction, we'll be meeting with hospital CEOs, health insurance CEOs, and all - building on top of what the President will be announcing tomorrow with regard to economic relief for working Americans."

Publicly traded healthcare insurance companies include Anthem (ANTM), CVS Health (CVS), Centene (CNC), Cigna (CI), Health Net (HNT), Humana (HUM), Molina Healthcare (MOH), UnitedHealth (UNH) and WellCare (WCG). Publicly traded hospital companies include Community Health (CYH), HCA Healthcare (HCA), LifePoint (LPNT), Tenet (THC) and Universal Health (UHS).

4. TAX FILING DEADLINE MAY BE EXTENDED: President Trump's administration is "likely" to announce an extension to the tax filing deadline of April 15th in an effort to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on American businesses and households, The Wall Street Journal's Kate Davidson, Richard Rubin and Andrew Restuccia wrote, citing an administration official and another source familiar with discussions. The report indicated that the deadline extension would serve as a "bridge loan" helping to address disruptions from the virus. The decision to extend and the details of how the extension would work have not been finalized, the report states. Publicly traded companies in the space include H&R Block (HRB) and Intuit (INTU).

5. PAYROLL TAX RELIEF: President Donald Trump has told Republican senators that he wants to enact a payroll tax holiday through this year's November election so that taxes won't go back up before people vote on whether to keep him in office, Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. Democrats have expressed reticence about such a tax cut, and several Republican senators also held back from endorsing the notion prior to Trump's visit to the capitol, Jacobs noted.

6. FACEBOOK TAGS TRUMP POST AS 'PARTLY FALSE': Facebook (FB) has given a "partly false" label to a video of former Vice President Joe Biden that was edited to make it sound like he was saying that President Trump would win re-election this year, the Verge's Kim Lyons reported. The clip shows part of the former VP's March 7 speech in St. Louis, Lyons noted. "Excuse me. We can only reelect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here. It's got to be a positive campaign, so join us," Biden said during the speech. The edited version cuts off after Biden says "we can only re-elect Donald Trump," and the video was shared on Trump's verified Facebook page with the comment "I agree with Joe!," Lyons added. The same video received Twitter's (TWTR) first "manipulated media" tag yesterday, the author noted.

 

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