U.S. stocks surged again Thursday after the Senate passed the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, with the House likely to follow.
The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 1,352 points, a 6% gain. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index also climbed 6% each.
Major indexes in London, Paris and Frankfurt were also higher, but Tokyo’s Nikkei was down 5%.
Analysts said U.S. investors shook off the record-high 3.2 million new jobless claims recorded last week, expecting that number to be higher.
U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to sign the economic stimulus package as soon as the House passes it Friday. It aims to flood the U.S. economy with billions of dollars in new spending for businesses, many of which have been brought to a standstill by the coronavirus.
Those businesses have been forced to lay off millions of workers, and those who are still working and getting paid aren’t finding too many stores and amusements open in which to spend.
Millions more are expected to file for unemployment benefits in the coming weeks. The U.S. jobless rate is forecast to hit double digits, and economists say a recession is almost a certainty.
But experts say the markets don’t always run parallel with the economy and that traders buy and sell stocks based on what they see in the months ahead.
