Wednesday's Stock Market Open: US Equities Rise As Traders Seek To Tamp Down Volatility, Oil Rises

Update: 12:05 p.m. EDT:

U.S. stocks continued moving higher as of noon Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 501.1 points to 23,154.96, while the S&P 500 rose 54.03 points to 2,713.44 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 137.68 points to 8,024.94.

In Europe markets closed narrowly mixed, as Britain’s FTSE-100 fell 0.47%, France’s CAC-40 edged up 0.1% and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.23%.

Original story:

U.S. stocks opened higher on Wednesday following an extremely volatile session on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 265.69 points to 22,919.55, while the S&P 500 rose 28.91 points to 2,688.32 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 91.74 points to 7,979.00.

The U.S. has now confirmed more than 400,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus with at least 12,000 deaths. Globally, more than 1,426,000 people have been infected and at least 81,865 have died.

German researchers expect Europe’s largest economy to contract by 10% in the second quarter.

“As [Tuesday’s] stock market shows, volatility is likely to remain for some time,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group. “[But] if the curve is bending, for the first time, some timeline is coming into focus for restarting at least parts of the economy. This means investors can start to reduce their best guesses as to how long this recession will last and even if the recession is very deep, if its duration can be shortened and known with some greater clarity, this would tend to raise the value of the stock market.”

However, Goldman Sachs chief equity strategist David Kostin warned about bear market rallies.

“Risk to the downside is greater than the opportunity to the upside from this point where we stand today,” Kostin said. “I would just remind you that in 2008 in the fourth quarter there were many different rallies, I call them bear market rallies, some of which almost 20% a couple of times -- but the market did not bottom until March of 2009.”

JPMorgan’s quantitative strategist Marko Kolanovic said he expects a “limited” re-opening of the economy in two weeks.

“We believe we’ve seen a peak in new case growth in the U.S. 3-4 days ago, and then deaths will peak in about a week, so we look for a limited reopening of the economy in 1-2 weeks,” he said. “And we think we will be able to recover the losses in equities sometime next year.”

Overnight in Asia, markets were mostly higher. China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.19%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.17%, and Japan’s Nikkei-225 rose 2.13%.

In Europe markets traded lower, as Britain’s FTSE-100 fell 0.71%, France’s CAC-40 dropped 0.68% and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.31%.

Crude oil futures surged 3.34% at $24.42 per barrel, Brent crude rose 0.56% at $32.05. Gold futures gained 0.3%.

The euro slipped 0.03% at $1.0889 while the pound sterling edged up 0.35% at $1.238.