April 25 (UPI) — U.S. markets overcame early losses to finish Monday in the green as surging tech stocks overshadowed investors’ concerns around COVID-19 outbreaks in China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 238.06 points, or 0.7%, after falling by as much as 488 points earlier. The S&P 500 rose 0.57% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.29%.
Shares of Twitter shot up 5.66% after the company accepted a $44 billion offer from SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to take the company private.
Conversely, shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp — a special purpose acquisition company set to merge with former President Donald Trump‘s Media & Technology Group — fell 12.9%.
The decline may be related to the news from Twitter as the venture involves a social media platform known as Truth Social, which has been positioned as an alternative to Twitter, Facebook and other major social media companies that banned Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Tech stocks got a boost as the 10-year treasury yield receded to 2.8%, with Google parent, Alphabet, rising 2.87%, Microsoft increasing by 2.44% and Facebook parent, Meta, going up 1.56%.
Rates declined as Bank of America economist Helen Qiao cut her forecast for China’s gross domestic product to 4.2% from 4.8% for 2022 amid increased COVID-19 lockdowns in the country.
“COVD-19 lockdowns and restrictions imposed in Shanghai and neighboring cities are not only hitting local demand, but also causing logistic breakdowns and widespread supply-chain disruptions within and outside of the area,” Qiao wrote in a note published last week.
“In our view, even if such control measures will ultimately be rolled back and economic activities will gradually normalize by mid-year, a heavy toll on growth already seems inevitable.”
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures also fell below $100 per barrel amid the lockdowns in China.
Investors this week are also bracing for quarterly earnings results from major tech names, including Alphabet, Meta, Apple and Amazon.
