The stimulus hopes to lift European stocks and Dow Jones futures

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00,
+ 0.62%
It rose 152 points.

Politico reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin have consulted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about the stimulus plan talks. It is unclear what role, if any, the Federal Reserve will play. The central bank played a role in the first stimulus plan. Separately, Pelosi said in an interview with CBS that airlines should not fire workers, and that the aid would be retroactive.

Aside from a short drive away, President Donald Trump spent the weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he is recovering from COVID-19. Inside or outside the hospital, recent polls have categorically switched to his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Financial markets have slightly lowered their expectations regarding continued uncertainty after Election Day, and it now appears less concerned about the approaching disputed election,” Barclays Bank strategists said in a note to clients. Strategists have said Trump’s hospitalization could be the “political trigger” driving the stimulus package to the finish line.

Also on the political front, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement urging their negotiators to “work intensively” to seal a trade deal, with Johnson also declaring in an interview that he was prepared to leave a trading bloc without one.

The news on the coronavirus front continued worrying, as Paris was close to closing its bars, although its restaurants would remain open, and Marseille was reopening.

Cineworld CINE,
-31.39%
Stocks were down 31%, as it said it would suspend operations in all of Regal’s 536 theaters in the US and the 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theaters in the UK starting Thursday. Cineworld said it is “assessing several sources of additional liquidity”.

WEIR Weir Group,
+ 16.64%
Shares are up 16% after agreeing to sell oil and gas products in Fort Worth, Texas-based to Caterpillar Inc.
+ 2.20%
For $ 405 million in cash. Ware also said the deal will help it generate $ 70 million in tax benefits and turn it into a “premium mining technology.”