U.S. stocks jump on rising oil prices
Xinhua, May 17, 2016 Adjust font size:
U.S. stocks posted solid gains Monday as investors cheered over a strong rebound in oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 175.39 points, or 1.00 percent, to 17,710.71. The S&P 500 gained 20.05 points, or 0.98 percent, to 2,066.66. The Nasdaq Composite Index leapt 57.78 points, or 1.22 percent, to 4,775.46.
Oil prices surged Monday on worries about global supply outages, with Brent crude touching an intra-day high of 49.47 U.S. dollars a barrel since early November.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report released Monday that the oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than the company expected. Goldman Sachs saw U.S. oil trading as high as 50 U.S. dollars per barrel in the second half of 2016.
On the economic front, the May 2016 Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicated that business activity declined for New York manufacturers.
The headline general business conditions index decreased nineteen points to minus 9.0, missing a market consensus of a 7.0-percent gain.
Meanwhile, builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes remained unchanged in May at a level of 58 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.
In corporate news, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has taken a new stake in Apple and upped its holdings in IBM, according to media reports Monday.
Shares of Apple soared 3.71 percent to 93.88 dollars apiece on Monday following the news, while shares of IBM increased 1.18 percent to 149.46 dollars per share. Endit