US stocks gain again on revived stimulus hopes

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks rose early Thursday on revived hopes for stimulus talks in Congress as US jobless claims held steady at a historically high level.

Major indices climbed for a second straight session after US President Donald Trump walked back a cancelation of stimulus talks that rattled investors on Tuesday.

About 25 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.5 percent at 28,430.19.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 3,441.20, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.6 percent to 11,427.00.

Trump, appearing on Fox Business News, said Thursday that there were "really good" odds of reaching a deal with Democrats in Congress on a new round of coronavirus stimulus for the battered US economy.

Stocks had dropped after Trump torpedoed talks on Tuesday, but rallied Wednesday as the president retreated from that position.

Airline shares were among the early winners. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has signaled support for another round of payroll support to avert tens of thousands of layoffs in the airline industry.

New US jobless benefit applications were barely changed last week.

There were 840,000 new claims filed in the week ended October 3, a drop of 9,000 from the previous week's level, but around four times the level a year ago, according to the data.

Among individual companies, Eaton Vance shot up 46.1 percent after it agreed to be acquired by Morgan Stanley for about $7 billion in the Wall Street giant's second big deal of 2020 after a $13 billion purchase of E-Trade. Morgan Stanley fell 1.1 percent.

IBM led the Dow, jumping 7.0 percent as it announced it would spin out its managed infrastructure business into a new public company, further positioning IBM in cloud computing and artificial intelligence under new chief executive, Arvind Krishna.