Wall Street Ends With Mild Gains, Dow Up 2.3%

Wall Street stocks posted mild gains on Thursday despite data showing another 6.65 million workers filed jobless benefit claims last week as the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to shut nationwide.

The Dow Jones gained 2.3 per cent to finish the session at 21,413, recovering some of the ground lost in the prior session.

The S&P 500 also added 2.3 per cent to end at 2,526 and the Nasdaq climbed 1.7 per cent to 7,487.

The downbeat jobless numbers, which mean 10 million workers lost their jobs in the second half of March, sent markets down at the opening bell, continuing the battering seen on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump warning the country to brace for a worsening Covid-19 outbreak.

But Trump's announcement that oil producers Russia and Saudi Arabia planned to end their price war sent crude surging before moderating after Moscow denied it had spoken to Riyadh.

Nonetheless, oil prices posted their largest increase in a single session, with Brent up 21 per cent and WTI jumping nearly 25 per cent.

That cheered Wall Street, where choppy trading has become the norm as the coronavirus wallops the world's largest economy.

"The broad economic weakness that the global economy is likely to endure is not fully priced in into markets right now," said Eric Freedman of US Bank Wealth Management.

"For us, the general concern is that the duration of the economic downturn is going to err on the side of longer as opposed to shorter," he said.

Energy stocks were predictably among the best performers on Wall Street, with Chevron up 11 per cent and ExxonMobil ending 7.6 per cent higher. (AFP)