US stocks climbed Tuesday as Wall Street once again grew optimistic about the path of coronavirus crisis while grappling with grim earnings reports from major companies. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped as many as 628.28 points, or 2.6 percent, in early trading following a 1.4 percent drop Monday. The S&P 500 posted an early …
US stocks climbed Tuesday as Wall Street once again grew optimistic about the path of coronavirus crisis while grappling with grim earnings reports from major companies.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped as many as 628.28 points, or 2.6 percent, in early trading following a 1.4 percent drop Monday. The S&P 500 posted an early gain as large as 2.7 percent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose as much as 3.2 percent.
The surge came after governors in several US states — including coronavirus hotspot New York — said they would form plans to reopen their economies once the virus dies down. Investors also got good news out of China, where new data showed exports and imports shrinking less than expected in March following the outbreak there.
“No doubt, the coming weeks will continue to be deeply troubling for many of these countries but if we are now positioned in the latter part of the bell curve, we can start to imagine life after the lockdown which is what investors have craved for weeks,” Craig Erlam, senior currency analyst at OANDA, said in a commentary.
Wall Street also appeared to find bright spots in rough first-quarter results from JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Johnson & Johnson, which kicked off the corporate earnings season on Tuesday.
JPMorgan saw its profits plunge in the first three months of the year but reported record markets revenue, helping its share price open 2.8 percent higher Tuesday. Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson’s shares climbed 4 percent at the open after it posted expectation-beating profits but cut its forecast for the year because of the coronavirus crisis.
With Post Wires
