By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened higher on Monday on expectations of sustained levels of monetary stimulus in the U.S. and the continuation of a broadly positive second-quarter earnings season.
By 9:35 AM ET (1335 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 132 points, or 0.4%, at 35,068 points. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were both up 0.5%.
Over the weekend, Federal Reserve board member Lael Brainard had repeated the central bank's message that the labor market was still too far from its pre-pandemic condition of health for the Fed to reduce its asset purchases, while both she and noted 'dove' Neel Kashkari at the Minnesota Fed warned about possible headwinds from the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Sentiment was also helped by news over the weekend that Chinese regulators were seeking dialogue with the Securities and Exchanges Commission over the issue of Chinese listings in the U.S. A barrage of regulatory measures by Beijing has created a strong impression recently that the Communist Party was increasingly hostile to the idea of Chinese companies reporting data to U.S. regulators. Expectations of fresh stimulus from China are also high after last week's Politburo meeting and further evidence of the manufacturing sector slowing down in July. The Caixin PMI fell to its lowest since April 2020, according to figures released overnight.
News that the U.S. Senate had reached agreement on a draft of a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure was also received positively, albeit with the caveat that the bill is likely to be held up in the House of Representatives.
BioNTech stock and Moderna stock stood out as early winners, after a weekend report by the Financial Times that the two, along with BioNTech's partner, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), had secured substantial price increases in big new contracts to supply the European Union with Covid-19 vaccines. BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) gained 5.0% and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock gained 1.2%.
Square (NYSE:SQ) stock reversed premarket losses to rise 7.3% after announcing that it will buy Australian fintech Afterpay with stock valued at $29 billion. Initial responses to the news had suggested fears that Square had overpaid. In other M&A news, Parker-Hannifin (NYSE:PH) stock rose 1.8% after its $8 billion bid for U.K. defense group Meggitt (OTC:MEGGY) was approved by the latter's board.
The ADRs of Chinese electric car manufacturers were also higher after a series of monthly deliveries numbers for July that saw all of them ramping up sales as planned. BYD (OTC:BYDDY) ADRs rose 7.2%, while Xpeng (NYSE:XPEV) ADRs rose 6.0% and Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI) ADR rose 5.5%. Nio (NYSE:NIO)ADRs rose 2.6%.