US STOCKS-Wall St gains as oil surge eclipses massive jobless numbers

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* Exxon, Chevron top gainers on Dow
* Energy index rises the most among major S&P sectors
* Initial jobless claims top 6 mln last week
* Walgreens biggest pct loser on Dow
* Indexes up: Dow 1.80%, S&P 2.01%, Nasdaq 1.52%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Medha Singh and Uday Sampath Kumar
April 2 (Reuters) - Wall Street bounced on Thursday as hopes
of a truce between Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil output
drove a record 22% surge in prices, outweighing the shock of
over 6 million Americans filing for jobless claims due to
virus-led lockdowns.
The S&P energy index .SPNY , down by half this year,
climbed 10%, with big gains for majors Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N
and Chevron Corp CVX.N powering a near 2% rise for both the
S&P 500 .SPX and the Dow Jones .DJI .
Saudi Arabia has called for an emergency meeting of oil
producers, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he expected
the kingdom and Russia to cut output by as much as 10 million to
15 million barrels a day. O/R
"The surge in crude is helping the mood, so we're seeing
some relief in markets that have been hammered," said Richard
Steinberg, chief market strategist at Colony Group, in Florida.
The list of top gainers on the benchmark S&P 500 was
dominated by oil companies. Apache Corp APA.N , Diamondback
Energy Inc FANG.O and Helmerich Payne HP.N advanced between
14% and 16%.
Brent LCOc1 was on track for its biggest one-day gain on
record, but prices are still far from recovering last month's
steep losses.
A bump in prices may still not be enough to save some of the
debt-laden U.S. shale companies that are on the brink of
bankruptcy as demand continues to plunge, wrought by the
coronavirus pandemic.
Analysts foresee a further decline in U.S. stocks as
country-wide shutdowns to limit the spread of the virus result
in a virtual halt in business activity and force companies to
lay off employees and save cash.
Boeing Co BA.N , once a symbol of America's industrial
might, has offered buyout and early retirement packages to
employees. Meanwhile, initial claims for unemployment benefits last
week rose to 6.65 million, exceeding the top end of economists'
estimates at 5.25 million. "They are really eye popping numbers, but at the end of the
day it doesn't really tell the whole story because we knew they
were going to be bad," said Shawn Snyder, head of investment
strategy at Citi Personal Wealth Management in New York.
"The real question is what happens by the end of the year."
At 12:52 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 377.55 points, or 1.80%, at 21,321.06, the S&P 500 .SPX was
up 49.73 points, or 2.01%, at 2,520.23 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 112.09 points, or 1.52%, at 7,472.67.
Walgreens WBA.O fell 7% after the drugstore retailer
reported a steep decline in U.S same-store sales in the last
week of March. L4N2BQ32Z
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.96-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.90-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded no new 52-week high and eight new
lows, while the Nasdaq recorded three new highs and 70 new lows.