Stocks and crude oil are rallying
Happy Friday!
US stocks opened higher, following the steepest sell-off in two months on Thursday.
Right after the open and near 9:32 a.m. ET, the Dow was up 94 points, the S&P 500 was up 13 points, and the Nasdaq was up 31 points - all by less than 1%.
The S&P 500 closed down 24 points (1.2%) on Thursday, as the Japanese Yen and Treasuries benefited from safe-haven buying.
Crude oil was up sharply in early trading, and the energy sector was the biggest gainer on the S&P 500. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May delivery in New York rose 5% to as high as $39.67 per barrel.
Later on Friday, driller Baker Hughes will release its latest count of US oil and gas rigs. And, we're about one week away from the expected meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers during which they could agree on production freezes.
The US economic-data calendar is light.
Canada released a blockbuster March employment report with 40,600 jobs added and the unemployment rate down to 7.1% from 7.3%, both beating estimates.
The Canadian dollar rallied against its US counterpart by the most in three weeks, by about 1.1% to 1.3010.