Stocks extended gains Monday morning as investors geared up for another week of closely monitoring developments around the global coronavirus outbreak and policymakers’ responses to the pandemic.
Over the weekend, coronavirus cases rose in major centers around the world but at an at least temporarily slower pace than in recent weeks.
The state of New York, which leads the nation with about 122,000 positive cases, on Sunday reported 594 new coronavirus deaths, or a decrease from the 630 reported on Saturday. But Governor Andrew Cuomo in Sunday press briefing cautioned against conflating the state’s first reported decrease in both death and total case count with the start of a trend, and reiterated that the state health system remains strained with patients. Total fatalities in New York have topped 4,100 to date.
Elsewhere, Italy reported the slowest rise of new deaths in two weeks on Sunday. France and Spain – two other European centers for the virus – also reported a
