Dow ends 2% higher as US stocks rally with oil prices

NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street stocks bounced on Wednesday (April 22), recovering some of the losses from a two-session slide as US oil prices rallied following a volatile session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 2 per cent at 23,469.58.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 2.3 per cent to 2,798.70, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.8 per cent to 8,495.38.

The gains came as futures for US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate for June delivery jumped 19 per cent to US$13.78 a barrel in New York.

WTI sank into negative territory on Monday for the first time, but that was for the May contract that expired Tuesday.

Still, analysts consider the oil market highly vulnerable to further weakness due to elevated US crude inventories that are near capacity level.

The turmoil in the oil market has been a source of downward pressure in the stock market over the last two days, amid fears of oil industry bankruptcies and concerns about the weakening macroeconomic picture that have dented petroleum consumption.

Analysts describe broad investor unease due to uncertainty on when the US economy will reopen following coronavirus lockdowns and on how quickly activity will return.

"We all can assume that by the end of June, the country will be pretty much open again, but we don't know," said Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Advisers.

"The clear problem is confidence," she said. "Everything has to do with people being fearful of congregating."

Large technology companies were big winners, with Facebook surging 6.7 per cent, Google parent Alphabet 3.9 per cent and Apple 2.9 per cent.

An exception was Netflix, which fell 2.9 per cent despite reporting a surge in new subscriptions. Shares of the streaming company had gained in anticipation of the earnings report.

Delta Air Lines fell 2.8 per cent as the company cautioned it could take up to three years to fully recover from the hit to business following coronavirus closures.