Dow, S&P 500 extend gains as markets monitor Ukraine

Wall Street stocks opened mostly higher Thursday, extending the positive momentum from the prior session as investors weighed Ukraine developments and the likely moderation of monetary tightening efforts.

Markets greeted remarks Wednesday from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that he favoured a more modest increase in Fed interest rates, compared with a larger potential rate hike in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note has pulled back from its peak levels in February.

"The market's newfound bullish bias is more about positioning and technical factors than it is about fundamentals," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare, adding that investors have shifted back into some beaten-down equities.

These buyers are "heartened by the seeming resilience of the stock market in the face of a very troubling geopolitical scene that is driving some very troubling increases in commodity prices that are going to pinch consumers," O'Hare said.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6 percent to 34,093.49.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.4 percent to 4,403.44, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slipped less than 0.1 percent to 13,747.03.

Among individual stocks, Kroger surged nearly 10 percent as the grocery chain reported better-than-expected profits following a 7.5 percent jump in quarterly revenues to $33.0 billion.