Tuesday's Stock Market Open: US Equities Rise To Extend Monday’s Rally

Update: 1:30 p.m. EST

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared nearly 500 points in early afternoon trading, wiping out last weeks losses, sparked by coronavirus fears.

At 1:30 p.m. EST, the Dow was up nearly 480 points at 28,879. The S&P 500 was up 55 points to 3,304 and the Nasdaq added 186 points to 9,459.

Original story:

U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as investors focus on corporate earnings, bargain stocks, while watching coronavirus-related developments in China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 296.93 points to 28,696.74 while the S&P 500 gained 31.69 points to 3,280.61 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 122.47 points to 9,273.40.

China’s National Health Commission reported the number of coronavirus infections had surpassed 20,000, with at least 425 deaths.

Hong Kong reported its first death related to the virus.

Singapore’s health ministry confirmed six new coronavirus cases, including four Singaporeans who did recently travel to China. Singapore now has a total of 24 confirmed cases.

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic said on Monday that the virus outbreak did not dampen his outlook for the U.S. economy.

“If this [virus] becomes a world issue, with ripples through many countries and many economies, then that’s a different type of event than as I understand it to be today,” Bostic said. “But given our past recent experience with these sorts of things, I don’t think it should; it hasn’t changed my outlook or my expectation about our rates path.”

Reuters reported that China’s central bank may cut its key lending rate and its banks’ reserve requirement ratios in the next few weeks to encourage economic growth.

“The balance between deleveraging and growth is likely to be tilted towards stimulus in order to make up ground lost due to the virus and quarantine,” said Larry Brainard, chairman for emerging markets at TS Lombard, in a note. “With [first quarter] GDP likely to fall sharply, we expect Beijing to respond aggressively with fiscal and monetary stimulus to get growth on track in [second quarter]. This will generate a V-shaped recovery, led by the industrial sector.”

Overnight in Asia, markets finished higher. China’s Shanghai Composite gained 1.34%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.21%, and Japan’s Nikkei-225 advanced 0.49%.

In Europe markets traded higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 1.4%, France’s CAC-40 climbed 1.44% and Germany’s DAX gained 1.52%.

Crude oil futures rebounded 1.72% at $50.97 per barrel and Brent crude rose 1.29% at $55.15. Gold futures slipped 1.14%.

The euro dipped 0.14% at $1.1046 while the pound sterling edged up 0.12% at $1.3013.