US stocks climb as tech rally offsets revived virus fears

• US equities climbed Tuesday as a tech-led rebound offset a resurgence of COVID-19 fears.
• Mega-caps including Apple, Facebook, and Amazon pushed indexes higher as investors turned back to the recently sold-off growth favorites.
• Still, new measures to curb the coronavirus's spread in the UK revived fears of fresh lockdowns and another wave of infections.
• Oil gained, with West Texas Intermediate crude rising as much as 1.6%, to $39.94 per barrel.
• Watch major indexes update live here.

US stocks climbed on Tuesday as a tech-led rebound offset a resurgence of COVID-19 fears.

Mega-caps including Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon led the way higher. The firms have seen renewed buying in recent sessions as more investors seek to get in at lower levels.

Those gains helped erase premarket declines that came after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed new measures to curb the coronavirus's spread after fresh outbreaks around the nation. Policies including earlier bar and restaurant closures and encouraging working from home are set to stay in place for at least six months.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET market open on Tuesday:

• S&P 500: 3,294.16, up 0.4%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 27,213.90, up 0.2% (64 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 10,797.01, up 0.1%

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The gains come after fresh pandemic concerns and allegations of money laundering at major banks dragged the Dow into a 510-point loss on Monday. Healthcare shares also tumbled in the prior session as the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sparked fears the Affordable Care Act being reversed in the Supreme Court.

The frothy start to the week kept volatility at relative highs. Wild price swings have stuck around through September after investors first dumped tech stocks at the start of the month. Cboe's VIX index — the preferred gauge of market volatility on Wall Street — jumped as high as 31.18 on Monday.

Tesla sank on Tuesday after CEO Elon Musk tweeted that innovations revealed at its "Battery Day" event may not reach "serious high-volume production" until 2022. The Tuesday event has long been viewed by shareholders as the next driver for strong gains.

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Investors will also look to House testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for updates to the US economic recovery. Powell's prepared remarks note that the bounce-back still faces significant uncertainties after "marked improvement" in recent months.

Gold rose as much as 0.4% to $1,920.05, swinging back above $1,900 after sinking below the threshold in Monday's sell-off. Treasury yields and the US dollar wavered.

Oil prices gained but failed to fully retrace Monday's slump. West Texas Intermediate crude rose as much as 1.6%, to $39.94 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international standard, gained 1.8%, to $42.20 per barrel, at intraday highs.

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