U.S. stock futures rose Friday even after the ugliest monthly jobs report ever as investors bet the worst of the coronavirus and its impact on the economy has passed.
Futures for Dow Jones Industrials galloped 232 points, or 1%, early Friday to 24,075
Futures for the S&P 500 gained 34 points, or 1.2%, at 2,914.
Futures for the NASDAQ Composite hiked 85.25 points, or 0.9%, to 9,193. as tech stocks looked to add to their gains after pushing the tech-heavy index into positive territory for the year on Thursday.
The U.S. Labor Department said a record 20.5 million jobs were lost last month, adding the unemployment rate jumped to 14.7% from just 4.4%. Both the spike in job losses and the unemployment-rate surge are post-World War II records.
To be sure, neither print was as bad as feared. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a loss of 21.5 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 16%.
With the suspicion that the economy will be reopening soon, stocks that would benefit from reopening the economy rose again Friday morning. Airlines, Disney, MGM Resorts and Hilton Worldwide were all higher in pre-market trading Friday.
Overseas, markets in Tokyo zoomed, with the Nikkei 225 leaping 2.6%, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Sang index picked up 1%.
Oil prices climbed 84 cents to $24.79 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices fell $5.90 to $1,719.90 U.S. an ounce.