The main equity benchmarks in the U.S. rebounded Wednesday, halting two straight days of declines as investors dipped their toes into a market that had lost its mojo on the back of fears of a resurgence of COVID in parts of the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up over 300 points, or 0.9%, to around 34,138, the S&P 500 index closed up 0.9% at 4,173, while the Nasdaq Composite Index finished up 1.2% to reach 13,950. The gains were even more pronounced for small-capitalization stocks which have been beaten up over the course of the past several sessions. The Russell 2000 closed up by over 2%. All closing levels are on a preliminary basis. The gains for stocks came as a rise in bonds in the U.S. has paused, with the 10-year Treasury note yield hanging around 1.56%. In corporate news, media giant Netflix closed down 7.4%, after it reported subscriber growth for the first quarter was weaker than expected. However, the declines in Netflix were outweighed by gains in other parts of the popular technology sector, with a rise in shares of Amazon.com Inc. , Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. finished higher on the day.
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