US open: Dow attempts to bounce back from Thursday's rout
Wall Street stocks attempted to bounce back from the previous day's losses on Friday, registering strong gains at the bell.
As of 1545 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.65% at 25,794.62, while the S&P 500 was 1.63% firmer at 3,050.96 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 1.60% stronger at 9,644.27.
The Dow Jones opened 666.45 points higher on Friday, reclaiming more than a third of the more than the 1,800 point loss registered on Thursday as stocks closed sharply in the red following an increased number of new Covid-19 cases in states emerging from lockdowns.
Fears of an emerging second wave of cases in the US were still very much so in focus on Friday, with Texas and Arizona facing rising infections and the likes of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted rises in new cases of 40% or higher, while Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina all reporting jumps of more than 30% in the week ended 7 June.
While major indices all recorded solid gains at the open, Naeem Aslam at AvaTrade suspects the movements were nothing more than a "dead cat bounce" and pointed to a statement from the International Monetary Fund's chief economist that said "the scars" of the Covid-19 pandemic "may linger for much longer".
However, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC that the White House would not consider shutting down the economy again bit did state he was prepared to return to Congress and request additional fiscal spending in order to help the economy if need be.
"We have the Fed program, we have Main Street, which is going to be now up and running, and we're prepared to go back to Congress for more money to support the American worker," he said. "So we’re going to get everybody back to work. That's my number one job working with the president and we're going to do that."
Investors were also digesting news from across the pond that UK gross domestic product had contracted by an all-time high of 20.4% in April.
On the corporate front, hard-hit stocks in the previous session like Carnival and United Airlines were both up more than 12% at the bell, while retailers Kohl's and the Gap were both higher after the open.
In macro news, the cost in the US of goods purchased from overseas jumped last month as energy prices rebounded, alongside a small increase in those for non-fuel imports. According to the Department of Labor, total import prices were 1.0% higher month-on-month and 6.0% lower year-on-year.
Elsewhere, the University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index increased 6.6 points to 78.9 in early June, the sharpest increase recorded since 2016. However, even with the improvement, the gauge was still well below its pre-Covid-19 level.