US: Stocks up as markets monitor Covid-19 news

[NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks rose early Friday, reversing the prior session's sell-off as markets monitored the latest headlines on the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Governments across Asia were imposing new restrictions in response to Covid-19 outbreaks, with Thailand announcing a seven-hour night curfew across the capital Bangkok and nine provinces and Sydney tightening a lockdown in Australia's largest city.

The latest Covid-19 trends have exacerbated uncertainty about the global economic recovery, leading to volatility in markets this week.

On Friday, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note rebounded after a series of declines.

The move was "aided by a sense that Treasuries have gotten overbought on a short-term basis," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

About 30 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.0 per cent at 34,777.11.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.7 per cent to 4,351.32, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3 per cent to 14,597.11.

Among individual companies, Pfizer jumped 2.1 per cent after the company and BioNTech said they would seek authorization for a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine to boost its efficacy against variants of the virus.

AFP