Optimism over encouraging news on the coronavirus pandemic sent U.S. stocks soaring Monday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1,627 points — an 8% gain. The Standard & Poors-500 and NASDAQ were both 7% higher.
European investors were also in a mood to buy Monday. Frankfurt was up 6%, Paris up 5% and London 3% higher.
Japan's main Nikkei index and Australia's S&P/ASX both gained more than 4%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced more than 2%. Shanghai's index was closed for a public holiday.
The latest numbers from Johns Hopkins shows the number of cases in the U.S. appears to be slowing, along with the numbers of deaths in New York and in Europe.
However, while the slow of the spread of the disease is a good sign, analysts say it still could take some time to open the economy more broadly. On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York cautioned that the state was still facing an emergency.
In addition, consumers — the chief economic engine in the U.S. — remain worried about how efforts to contain the virus will affect them. A Federal Reserve survey conducted in March showed that Americans' pessimism about the labor market is high. And with good reason: More than 10 million people applied for unemployment benefits in the last two weeks of March after losing their jobs as a result of business shutdowns. And the numbers are expected to keep surging, with some economists predicting the loss of 20 million jobs — or more.
