US open: Stocks record early gains following Thursday bloodbath
US stocks opened higher on Friday following the Dow’s worst day since Black Monday in 1987 in the previous session.
As of 1535 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.10% at 21,432.97, while the S&P 500 was ahead 1.28% at 2,512.37 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 1.24% firmer at 7,291.23.
The Dow opened 232.35 points higher on Friday after closing sharply lower on Thursday, with trading ending in misery as consternation around the global COVID-19 pandemic raged on.
S&P 500 futures hit "limit up" in pre-market trading, just 24 hours after hitting "limit down" in the previous session which resulted in a 15-minute halt to trading.
Sentiment was boosted after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Republicans and Democrats were close to reaching a deal on an economic relief package aimed at helping lessen some of the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
"We've resolved most of our differences," said Pelosi.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that the White House and Congress were close to striking a deal. "The president is absolutely committed that this will be an entire government effort, that we will be working with the House and Senate," Mnuchin said.
SpreadEx analyst Connor Campbell said: "A historically terrible week, then, ends – hopefully – with a tentative rebound. What state the markets return in on Monday is unclear.
"Equities could really do with Trump's stimulus plan materialising, just to reverse some of the damage done by the President’s shock travel ban."
Also in focus was news that the US Federal Reserve had injected trillions of dollars into the treasury market in order to improve liquidity and the revelation that US forces had carried out strikes against an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq on Thursday, in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed two American troops and a British soldier earlier this week.
On the macro front, prices for foreign-made goods imported to the US decreased in February, led by lower prices for petroleum, according to the Labor Department.
Import prices were down 0.5% month-on-month in February, ahead of the 0.8% decline expected by economists, while prices for petroleum imports decreased 7.6%.
Export prices fell 1.1% in February, the largest monthly decline since December 2015.
Elsewhere, the spreading coronavirus and big falls in stock market prices weighed on US consumer sentiment at the start of the month, the results of the most closely-watched survey showed.
However, there were no signs of "economic panic" as during the Great Recession, said Richard Curting, the survey's chief economist. "Perhaps the most important factor limiting consumers' initial reactions is that the pandemic is widely regarded as a temporary event," he said.
The University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index fell from 101.0 at the end of February to 95.9 in early March. Economists had pencilled-in a reading of 96.4.
No major corporate earnings were scheduled for release on Friday.