Markets Gain on Expectations of US Interest Rates Remaining Low

The Stoxx Europe 600 was up 2.5% midway through the European session, led by gains in energy stocks that were buoyed by steadying oil prices. DuPont’s shares soared on news that its embattled CEO would step down, while biotechnology companies sank again. Investors are anxious about pushback the industry’s drug pricing practices.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 slipped 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,976.

CENTRAL BANKERS: Markets are increasingly confident the Federal Reserve will hold off for longer on raising interest rates following last week’s jobs report which showed the US economy was creating fewer jobs. On Thursday, minutes from the Fed’s September meeting will be released and should provide insight into where the policymakers stand.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 304.06 points, or 1.85 percent, to 16,776.43, the S&P 500 gained 35.69 points, or 1.83 percent, to 1,987.05 and the Nasdaq Composite added 73.49 points, or 1.56 percent, to 4,781.26.

The S&P’s five-day rise of 5.6 percent was its best five days dating back to late 2011.

“Instead of interpreting the disappointing US NFP numbers as symptomatic of the state of the global economy, investors have instead chosen to look upon the glass as half full, attaching positivity to prospects of a delayed Fed lift-off”, they added.

“We had been seeing a level of job creation closer to 3 million on a trailing 12-month basis on average for the previous year, but the revisions and the relatively weak September number change that trailing 12-month trend to 2.8 million”, said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com. That helped send oil and gas companies sharply higher.

Jay Woods, with Goldman Sachs, center, works with other stock traders at the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, October 5, 2015 in New York. ConocoPhillips, Chevron and ExxonMobil rose between 2 and 4 percent each.

– Heating oil rose 6.3 cents to close at $1.612 a gallon. Heating oil rose 2.8 cents to $1.548 a gallon. Gold edged up $1 to settle at $1,137.60 an ounce, silver rose 45 cents to $15.71 an ounce and copper increased three cents to $2.36 a pound. The dollar rose to 120.25 yen and the euro rose to $1.1269.

Prices of safe-haven government bonds gained on the downbeat USA jobs data, sending benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields to near six-week lows on Friday.