Wall Street stocks opened higher Friday, boosted by a report of positive preliminary testing for a coronavirus treatment and the release of broad White House guidelines for re-opening the US economy.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 24,065.38, up 2.2 percent. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 2.0 percent to 2,855.39, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 1.1 percent at 8,627.55.
Optimism was high after a report in Stat News that a test of Gilead Sciences' remdesivir succeeded among several patients with severe coronavirus symptoms in a Chicago study.
But the report cautioned that the data represents only one sample, adding "it's impossible to determine the full study results with any