US STOCKS-Wall St gains on oil surge, but off early highs

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* Energy index rises the most among major S&P sectors
* Initial jobless claims top 6 mln last week
* Dow up 1.07%, S&P 500 up 1.14%, Nasdaq up 0.62%

(Updates to mid-afternoon, changes byline)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Thursday as hopes
for a truce in the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia and
a cut oil output drove gains, helping to offset the shocking
jump in Americans filing for jobless claims due to
coronavirus-led lockdowns.
The S&P energy index .SPNY , down by more than 50% this
year due to a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia and
coronavirus-driven demand worries that has caused oil prices to
plunge, climbed 8.01%,
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. Helping U.S. crude CLc1 futures
settle up 24.7%, and Brent up 21.5%, their biggest daily
percentage gains on record. Still, major averages were off their best levels of the day
as the energy sector pulled back from earlier gains.
"Any good news now, or anything that might even come off as
being good news could potentially help markets, that is what you
are seeing with energy today," said Keith Buchanan, portfolio
manager at GLOBALT in Atlanta.
"But as we have seen since February, this bear market
environment tends to fade those rallies."
the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 224.78 points,
or 1.07%, to 21,168.29, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 28.06 points,
or 1.14%, to 2,498.56 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
45.75 points, or 0.62%, to 7,406.34.
The list of top gainers on the benchmark S&P 500 was
littered with oil companies. Occidental Petroleum OXY.N surged
18.20%, with names such as Apache Corp APA.N and Halliburton
HAL.N also seeing double-digit percentage gains.
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, sending shares down 6.25%. Investors continue to absorb a wave of bad economic news,
that will continue to paint a grim picture. Initial claims for
unemployment benefits last week rose to 6.65 million, exceeding
the top end of economists' estimates at 5.25 million.
"Everyone's jaw dropped last week at 3 million and we hit 6
million this week and everyone yawned, which is just remarkable
how that psychology works," said Buchanan.
As earnings season slowly begins to get underway, Walgreens
WBA.O fell 7.88% after the drugstore retailer reported a steep
decline in U.S same-store sales in the last week of March.
L4N2BQ32Z
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.05-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.03-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted no new 52-week highs and 19 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 3 new highs and 115 new lows.