Wall Street rises after biggest pullback since March
By Medha Singh and Devik Jain (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on Friday, as bargain hunters returned after a punishing session a day earlier, but the indexes were still on track for their worst week in nearly three months on fears over new coronavirus cases and economic worries. The S&P 500 tumbled nearly 6% on Thursday and the three main indexes recorded their worst day since mid-March, as the Federal Reserve's indication of a long road to recovery and rising COVID-19 cases in the United States cast a pall over investor bets on a swift economic rebound.
By Medha Singh and Devik Jain
(Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on Friday, as bargain hunters returned after a punishing session a day earlier, but the indexes were still on track for their worst week in nearly three months on fears over new coronavirus cases and economic worries.
The S&P 500 tumbled nearly 6% on Thursday and the three main indexes recorded their worst day since mid-March, as the Federal Reserve's indication of a long road to recovery and rising COVID-19 cases in the United States cast a pall over investor bets on a swift economic rebound.
Earlier this week, the tech-heavy Nasdaq confirmed it had been in a bull market since March 23 and the S&P 500 briefly tuned positive on the year.
"We have a little relief pop because maybe it was a bit overdone yesterday," said Dennis Dick, proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas.
The S&P 500 was up 0.8% after rising as much as about 3% earlier in the session, as the benchmark index once again flirted with its 200-day moving average, a closely-watched technical indicator.
The CBOE volatility index turned positive to hit its highest level since April 22.
"The volatility is extremely high and there's an enormous amount of uncertainty," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
"No one really knows whether the sell off yesterday was all of it, or whether there's more to come. You have people positioning in and out, trying to either avoid another downturn or take advantage of the fact that they maybe don't think there will be one."
At 1:09 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 291.31 points, or 1.16%, at 25,419.48, the S&P 500 was up 22.79 points, or 0.76%, at 3,024.89. The Nasdaq Composite was up 57.02 points, or 0.60%, at 9,549.75.
All the major S&P sectors rose with technology and financials providing the biggest boost to the benchmark index.
Boeing Co jumped 8%, but looked to end the week 8% lower. United Airlines Holdings Inc, American Airlines Group Inc, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd jumped between 14.0% and 14.8%, leading gains on the S&P 500 following sharp declines in the previous session.
Photoshop maker Adobe Inc rose 4% after posting a better-than-expected quarterly profit, driven by strong demand for its cloud software.
Yoga apparel maker Lululemon Athletica Inc fell 4.7% after posting lower-than-expected quarterly results following coronavirus-induced store closures.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 3.61-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 2.63-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded one new 52-week high and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 17 new highs and four new lows.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Devik Jain in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Terence Gabriel in New York and Pawel Goraj in Gdansk; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Uttaresh.V and Shounak Dasgupta)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
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