Monday’s Stock Market Open: US Equities Open Higher Despite Rising Covid-19 Infections

Update: 12:05 p.m. EDT:

U.S. stocks continued their upward trajectory as of Monday noon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 400.52 points to 25,416.07, while the S&P 500 rose 31.92 points to 3,040.97 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 88.63 points to 9,845.85.

In Europe markets finished higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 1.08%, while France’s CAC-40 climbed 0.73% and Germany’s DAX gained 1.18%.

The National Association of Realtors said on Monday that pending home sales surged by 44.3% in May compared to April, the largest one-month increase in the history of its survey. Still, sales were 5.1% below May 2019 levels.

“This has been a spectacular recovery for contract signings, and goes to show the resiliency of American consumers and their evergreen desire for homeownership,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “This bounce-back also speaks to how the housing sector could lead the way for a broader economic recovery. Still, more home construction is needed to counter the persistent underproduction of homes over the past decade.”

Original story:

U.S. stocks climbed on Monday as traders shrugged off reports that cases of covid-19 continue to surge in the U.S., raising worries about a delayed economic recovery.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 221.05 points to 25,236.60, while the S&P 500 rose 15.29 points to 3,024.34 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 20.07 points to 9,777.29.

The U.S. now has at least 2.5 million cases of covid-19, with Florida, Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas showing big jumps over the weekend. Florida has prohibited drinking in bars, while Texas scaled back business reopenings.

“There are more cases. There are more hospitalizations in some of those places and soon you’ll be seeing more deaths,” said White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Even though the deaths are coming down as a country, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to start seeing them coming up now.”

On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warned that the “window is closing” for the U.S. to clamp down on the coronavirus outbreak.

“Reopening plans stumbled – this not only in new virus hotspots like [Texas] and [Florida], but also impacting international travel – as daily U.S. virus cases surpassed what all had hoped would be their peak in April,” wrote Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategist at BTIG.

“The recovery is going to be much slower and much more uneven than most people believe,” cautioned David Hunt, president and chief executive officer of PGIM Inc. “Markets are priced for a much sharper V-shaped recovery, which we don’t think is likely.”

Overnight in Asia markets slid, as China’s Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.61%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng exchange fell 1% and Japan’s Nikkei-225 dropped 2.3%.

In Europe markets traded higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 0.58%, while France’s CAC-40 climbed 0.36% and Germany’s DAX gained 0.46%.

Crude oil futures rose 0.65% at $38.74 per barrel, Brent crude gained 0.64% at $41.19. Gold futures edged up 0.05%.

The euro rose 0.45% at $1.1271 while the pound sterling slipped 0.3% at $1.2299.