Stocks open slightly higher after worst drop in 2 years

Stocks open slightly higher after worst drop in 2 years

SeattlePI.com

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks opened slightly higher on Wall Street as the market claws back some of the ground it lost in a dramatic sell-off a day earlier. Home Depot and Macy's rose Tuesday after reporting results that beat analysts' forecasts. The gains came a day after the worst drop in two years, which took 1,000 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average and erased its gains for the year. Bond and oil prices held steady. The Dow rose 109 points, or 0.4%, to 28,060, the S&P 500 added 10 points, or 0.3%, to 3,235 and the Nasdaq added 50, or 0.6%, to 9,275.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below:

Share prices around the world, particularly in Japan, took a hit Tuesday amid mounting fears about the economic impact of the new coronavirus outbreak.

An anticipated solid opening on Wall Street provided some hope that the current bout of selling might ease.

With cases of the virus outside China rising, traders are fretting about the global implications of the outbreak. On Monday, stock indexes suffered one of their worst days in years, with the Dow Jones index on Wall Street tanking more than 1,000 points.

The mood in markets was not as bad on Tuesday but the selling momentum was clear, particularly on Japan's main Nikkei index, which slumped 3.3% to 22,605.41 after reopening from a holiday on Monday.

After a steady opening in Europe, stocks were down sharply again, with traders reacting to the spike in virus cases in Italy and Austria and Croatia reporting their first cases.

The negative news dampened the mood across European markets. Germany's DAX was 0.5% lower at 12,977 while the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 0.7% to 7,105. The CAC 40 in France was down 0.5% at 5,761.

“What was largely a Chinese issue to resolve has soon...

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