US STOCKS-S&P 500 climbs 2% as Fed, other policymakers take further steps

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* Fed opens dollar swap lines with nine new countries
* Trump sees "lot of goodwill" in stimulus talks
* Ford draws down $15.4 billion in credit
* Indexes up: Dow 2.2%, S&P 500 2.4%, Nasdaq 4.6%

(Updates to late afternoon)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 was up more than
2% in afternoon trading on Thursday after policymakers around
the world took further emergency actions to try to help
financial markets and stave off a deep and lasting
coronavirus-driven recession.
The Federal Reserve opened swap lines with central banks in
nine new countries to ensure the world's dollar-dependent
financial system continued to function.
It was the latest in a host of steps taken by the U.S.
central bank over the last two weeks, including cutting
borrowing costs to near zero and providing billions more for
cheap credit.
The European Central Bank pledged late Wednesday to buy 750
billion euros ($820 billion) in sovereign debt through 2020.
President Donald Trump, in another now-regular update for
Americans hunkered down in their homes, said there were
therapies that he believed could be rolled out quickly to treat
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and sounded
upbeat on the chances of agreeing hundreds of billions of
dollars of aid with Congress. Policymakers will need to keep providing support in order to
provide liquidity to the financial system, said Quincy Krosby,
chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New
Jersey.
"It is not just about the Fed," Krosby said. "It is about
the fiscal side of the equation. The question for the market is,
how much do we actually need, and the severity of the crisis is
suggesting we're going to need amounts we never initially
thought of."
The recent sharp market volatility continued, however. The
benchmark S&P 500 was down more than 3% earlier in the session.
And Thursday's gains did little to restore the markets after
the pounding the main U.S. indexes have suffered in the past
month. The Dow erased virtually the last of its gains under
Trump's presidency on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 index has
lost roughly $8.7 trillion in market value in the past month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 442.49 points,
or 2.22%, to 20,341.41, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 56.45 points,
or 2.35%, to 2,454.55 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
321.51 points, or 4.6%, to 7,311.35.
"Active investors are using this as an opportunity to maybe
pick up what might be perceived as bargains because nobody's
really sure how to value stocks right now," said Robert Pavlik,
chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at
SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York.
Ford Motor Co F.N was the latest major U.S. corporation to
bolster its cash reserves to ride out the virus impact, drawing
down more than $15 billion from existing credit
lines. Official data showed the number of Americans filing for
unemployment benefits surged to a 2-1/2-year high last week as
companies in the services sector laid off workers because of the
pandemic. Late Wednesday, New York Stock Exchange-owner
Intercontinental Exchange Inc ICE.N said the market would
temporarily close its trading floors and move fully to
electronic trading starting next week. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.90-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.84-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and 91 new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 12 new highs and 536 new lows.