Bay Area stocks were trying for a second-straight day of gains on Wall Street Friday, as Apple, Netflix and Intel edged into positive territory following Gov. Gavin Newsom issuing a shelter-in-place order for all of California as part of the ongoing effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Newsom’s order, which took effect Thursday night, requires all businesses that don’t provide “essential services” to close their doors for the foreseeable future. Grocery stores, banks, hospitals and health care facilities, gas stations and some other businesses are allowed to remain open, and restaurants are allowed to offer take out service.
In early trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose almost 300 points, to 20,384.77, while the S&P 500 rose 1.3%, to 2,439.73, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up by 2.4%, at 7,330.03.
Tesla shares rose almost 4%, to $443.88, one day after the company ended a standoff with Alameda County officials and said it would temporarily suspend operations at it vehicle production plant in Fremont. Tesla said it would close up shop starting at the end of day, Monday.
Facebook rose by 2.4%, to $156.74 a share. The social-networking giant said that it will comply with Gov. Newsom’s order and make it mandatory for all employees to work remotely across California.
Among other notable Bay Area companies, Apple shares rose 2.5%, to $250.84, Intel climbed by 3.4%, to $47.50 a share, HP eked out a gain of 0.4%, to get to $14.46 a share, and AMD shares rose 5.4%, to $41.95.
Twitter rose 6%, to $25.61 a share. Twitter said it has begun removing tweets that it believes spread misinformation about coronavirus.
Netflix climbed 3.6%, to $344.56. On Thursday, Netflix said it will reduce the quality of its video streaming service in Europe in order to cut down on network traffic as people who are confined at home due to the coronavirus pandemic are increasing their use of Netflix and other streaming video services.
