By Uday Sampath Kumar
(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures jumped about 4% on Monday after President Donald Trump expressed hope that the coronavirus health crisis in the United States was “leveling-off” in some of the country’s hardest-hit areas.
Wall Street’s main indexes fell more than 1.5% on Friday as a record 113-month expansion in U.S. employment came to an abrupt end, underlining the extent of the pandemic’s economic devastation.
New York, the country’s biggest hot spot, reported for the first time in a week that virus-related deaths in the state had fallen from the day before, while the number of deaths in France and Italy also slowed.
Shares of most major U.S. airlines, among the most battered this year due to the sudden drop in travel, jumped early on Monday, but Delta Airlines fell over 5% in premarket trading, as Citigroup cut its price target on the stock.
At 05:29 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 811 points, or 3.87%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 97.25 points, or 3.92% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 310.75 points, or 4.13.
SPDR S&P 500 ETFs were up 4.05%.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
