Thursday's early trade: Stocks jump on hopes worst for labour market is over

Wall Street jumped 1% on Thursday as a third straight decline in weekly jobless claims raised hopes the worst of the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the labour market was over, while energy stocks zoomed 5% on a rebound in oil prices.

Weekly jobless claims fell to 4.43 million from a revised 5.24 million, but it was still staggering and took the total in the past five weeks to a record 26 million, wiping out all the US jobs created since the global financial crisis.

"The decline in initial jobless claims is encouraging, but the damage has already been done with the insured unemployment rate surging to a record high in the (previous) week," said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics.

The energy index gained the most among the 11 S&P 500 sectors as oil prices recovered in a tumultuous week that saw US crude futures crash below zero for the first time in history.

The CBOE volatility index has retreated from 12-year peaks hit last month, but remains well above levels seen in the past two years and analysts have warned of another selloff as Corporate America issues worrying forecasts for the year.

At 11:13 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 311.01 points, or 1.32%, at 23,786.83, the S&P 500 was up 34.94 points, or 1.25%, at 2,834.25 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 110.05 points, or 1.30%, at 8,605.43.