Apple, Intel lead gains among Bay Area stocks

Apple, Intel and many other well-known Bay Area companies saw their shares score solid gains on the stock market Monday as investors came back from the weekend to take some steps forward in the wake of last week’s passage of the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package.

By the time the market closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had climbed 690.70 points, or or 3.2%, to 22,327.48. The S&P 500 also put in a strong performance, rising 3.4%, to close at 2,626.65 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose by 3.6%, to 7,774.15.

On Friday, President Trump signed the stimulus package, meant to blunt at least some of the economic harm caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Federal officials said individuals should expect to see payments from the package withing a few weeks.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Apple shares rose almost 3 percent, to $254.81. While Apple is still several weeks away from giving its next quarterly earnings report, some potential signs of the state of Apple’s business were provided by Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that builds iPhones for Apple in China. Foxconn said its earnings for the last three months of 2019 fell by almost 24% from the prior year, and it expects earning to decline in the first quarter of this year due to factories shutting down as part of China’s efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Intel shares rose 6%, to $55.49. Over the weekend, Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon raised his rating on Intel to market perform from underperform on the grounds that the semiconductor giant is in a better position than many other companies to weather the coronavirus-related effects on the economy.

Cisco Systems shares rose almost 4%, to $40.32, while Facebook was up by almost 6%, to close at $165.95, HP also rose nearly 6%, to $17.84 a share, AMD shares rose almost 3%, to $47.86 and Netflix climbed by almost 4%, to close at $370.96 a share, as it, and other streaming TV providers touted free trial periods for their services for consumers staying at home under the current shelter-inplace guidelines.

On Sunday. President Trump extended nationwide social-distancing policies until the end of April.