By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened higher after the long weekend, with risk appetite emboldened by a sharp drop in coronavirus cases and reassurances about enduring support from the Federal Reserve.
By 10:45 AM ET (1545 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 123 points, or 0.39%. The S&P 500 was up 0.31% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 0.46%. All three indices hit record highs in the first minutes of trading.
The moves came after St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard played down suggestions that the Fed’s loose monetary policy was fueling an asset bubble, either in stocks or in assets such as Bitcoin, which topped $50,000 for the first time earlier in the day. Bullard dismissed the current action in stocks as “just normal investing."
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR), a software maker that has reinvented itself essentially as a vehicle for holding bitcoin, fell 0.9% after filing for a $600 million issue of convertible notes.
Among individual movers, Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR) stood out with a 7.1% drop as investors trimmed exposure ahead of the scheduled end of the cyber-security firm’s post-IPO lockup on Friday. The group’s quarterly update released earlier failed to provide enough reassurances about the long-term outlook to support holders.
Mining stocks were firm after corporate news overnight included a record special dividend from Australian iron ore specialist BHP Billiton Ltd (ASX:BHP) and the reinstatement of dividend payments by mining and trading giant Glencore PLC (LON:GLEN), where copper typically accounts for the lion’s share of group profits. BHP ADRs rose 6.9% and Glencore ADRs rose 7.0% to their highest since April 2019. In both cases, a surge in Chinese demand for their products enabled the groups to absorb heavy impairments.
On a light day for economic data, the New York Empire State Manufacturing index rose by more than expected to its highest since September, in a further indication that the clouds over the economy may be lifting.
The number of new infections of Covid-19 fell to their lowest daily level since October on Monday, extending a trend of recent improvement. The number of people hospitalized with the disease is also only half its peak level around the turn of the year.
Despite the emergence of new virus strains across the globe, Southwest Airlines Company (NYSE:LUV) said earlier it expects its cash burn to ease slightly in the next couple of months as leisure bookings improve. Southwest stock rose as much as 1% before falling back to be down 0.1%. American Airlines Group (NASDAQ:AAL) stock and United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:UAL) stock both rose over 2%, however, while Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE:DAL) stock rose 2.2% to its highest since last March.