Stocks - Wall Street Opens Higher, Shrugging off Lockdown Extension

U.S. stock markets opened the week mostly higher, albeit paring early gains and trading generally in more nuanced fashion than has been usual in recent sessions, amid bargain-hunting and hopes for rapid progress in finding effective treatments to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. By 10:15 AM (1415 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 191 points, or 0.9% at 21,828 points. The S&P 500 was up 1.5% and theNASDAQ Composite was up 1.9%. The market took in its stride a sharp change in rhetoric on Sunday evening from President Donald Trump, who acknowledged the risk of up to 200,000 U.S. deaths from the virus, even under the measures taken so far to combat it. Trump pushed back until the end of April the timeline for lifting the administration’s current guidance on social distancing, having earlier wanted the economy to be functioning as close as possible to normal by Easter (April 12).