U.S. Markets Rally Amid Hopes That Pandemic Spread is Slowing

U.S. equities markets are starting the week with a rally driven by hopeful signs that the spread of the coronavirus outbreak may be slowing in response to aggressive social distancing measures.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up more than 1,000 points in early trading Monday. That follows a 360-point loss on Friday that capped another seesaw week for Wall Street.

The NASDAQ jumped more than 300 points while the S&P 500 was up more than 100 points.

AMC Networks led the list of media stocks on the rise with a more than 12% gain in the first hour of trading. AMC’s share price has been nearly cut in half during the volatility of the past few weeks. Other stocks that have been hammered because of Wall Street’s underlying uncertainty about the business also logged strong gains in the early going, notably Lionsgate (up 11%), Discovery (up 8%) and ViacomCBS (up 9%).

Larger media congloms — Disney, Comcast and AT&T — notched gains in the 4%-5% range. Apple was up nearly 5% while Netflix, Facebook and Amazon inched up in the 2%-4% range.

More to come