Wall Street opens decisively higher despite record Jobless Claims figures

• Risk rally continues for third straight day despite unprecedented increase in Jobless Claims.
• S&P 500 Utilites Index adds more than 4% in early trade.

After closing the previous two days with strong gains, Wall Street's main indexes opened sharply higher on Thursday as investors seem to have shrugged off the huge leap in weekly Initial Jobless Claims reading.

Major indexes add more than 2%

As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.6% on the day while the S&P 500 were adding 2.5 and 2.1%, respectively.

Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Department of Labor showed that Initial Jobless Claims skyrocketed to 3,283,000 from 282,000 to reflect the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the labour market. On the other hand, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis' third estimate of the Q4 GDP growth remained unchanged at 2.1%.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Utilities Index is up 4.6% on the day to lead the rally ahead of the Materials Index, which was last seen adding 3.3%.