Solid earnings send stock indexes higher on Wall Street
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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are opening broadly higher on Wall Street, following gains overseas, as investors welcome more solid earnings reports from U.S. companies. Molson Coors and Akamai Technologies both rose sharply early Wednesday after reporting results that easily beat analysts' estimates. Lyft fell after reporting that its annual loss more than doubled last year. The S&P 500 index rose 19 points, or 0.6%, to 3,377. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 227 points, or 0.8%, to 29,510. The Nasdaq composite rose 66 points, or 0.7%, to 9,706. Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.63%.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Global stock markets rose Wednesday on hopes that central banks and governments are able to help the economy get past the disruptions created by the outbreak of a new virus, mostly in China.
France's CAC 40 added 0.5% to 6,082 and Germany's DAX was up 0.8% at 13,739. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.4% to 7,531. U.S. shares were set to drift higher with Dow and S&P 500 futures both up 0.4%.
Earlier, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.7% to finish at 23,861.21. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% to 7,088.20. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.9% to 27,819.94, while the Shanghai Composite also rose 0.9% to 2,926.90.
“Despite coronavirus concerns, investors tend to believe that central banks and policymakers have measures to stimulate the economy during and post the public health crisis,” said analysts at financial firm CMC Markets in a report.
China reported 97 more deaths from the new disease, named COVID-19, pushing the total dead past 1,100, even as the country remained largely closed down to prevent its spread. The number of cases worldwide is about 45,000, all but a few hundred in China.
Investor sentiment in Asia was cheered...