Stocks Rally as States
Begin to Reopen After
COVID-19 Shutdowns Over the weekend, Georgia, Oklahoma
and South Carolina began the process of
reopening some businesses and public places. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average gained .54 percent
minutes after trading had begun. The S&P 500 and
Nasdaq Composite rose .69 percent
and .89 percent, respectively. Last week, President Donald Trump signed
a relief package injecting $310 billion
into the Paycheck Protection Program. Banks are expected
to resume processing
applications for the program. Prominent companies including
3M, Tesla, Apple, Caterpillar and Amazon will
report their quarterly results later in the week. Commodities didn't fare as well.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell 28 percent,
and gold is down .13 percent. Markets also rallied
across Asia. Japan's Nikkei rose 2.71 percent,
China's Shanghai Composite gained .25 percent
and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.88 percent.