Wall Street stocks rose early Monday, recovering some of last week's losses as investors adopted a more hopeful view on the latest COVID-19 variant.
Major indices tumbled more than two percent Friday on worries the Omicron variant could derail the global economic recovery. But investors appeared more optimistic Monday that vaccines and therapeutics may limit the impact of the latest outbreak.
"The belief in vaccine efficacy is still winning out as an offset to a worst-case scenario of new lockdown measures in the world's major economies," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.
"Accordingly, we're seeing some unwinding of Friday's flight-to-safety trades and Friday's economic slowdown fears."
About 30 minutes into Monday's trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4 percent at 35,029.99.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.0 percent to 4,641.52, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.5 percent to 15,725.42.
Besides news on the Covid-19 variant, markets will be watching a trove of economic data this week, including readings on the manufacturing and services sector and the November jobs report.
Meanwhile, Nasdaq suspended trading of Twitter stock amid news reports saying the company's CEO Jack Dorsey was expected to step down.