Hope takes the reins on Wall Street, stocks rally worldwide

NEW YORK (AP) U.S. stocks joined a worldwide rally and closed out their first back-to-back weekly gain since the market began selling off two months ago.

The S&P 500 jumped 2.7% Friday, following up on even bigger gains in Europe and Asia, as investors latched onto several strands of hope about progress in the fight against the coronavirus. They included the White House’s release of guidelines for states to reopen their economies and a very early but encouraging report on a possible treatment for COVID-19.

The gains came even as scary data piled higher about the economic and human toll of the virus.