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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets rose sharply at the open on Wednesday, amid hopes that the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 will not be as economically disruptive as first feared.
Another strong set of data from the labor market also encouraged participants that the U.S. economy is plenty strong enough to cope with the withdrawal of Federal Reserve stimulus – even if that means earlier interest rate hikes too.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 240 points, or 0.7%, at 34,723 points. The S&P 500 was up 1.0% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2%. None of the indices, however, managed to recoup all their losses of Tuesday.
Earlier, private payrolls processor ADP said that the U.S. private sector added another 534,000 jobs through the middle of November, down from 570,000 a month earlier, but still above forecasts and the second-largest monthly gain in six months.
