By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened the week higher, rebounding from a week of losses amid brighter news from the pandemic front.

The number of new Covid-19 infections fell consistently last week to be more than 10% off its peak. that has encouraged hopes that the 'delta wave' of the pandemic may soon be over in the U.S., even though deaths – a agging indicator – are still near record levels in some parts of the country.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 291 points, or 0.8%, at 34,899 points. That was outperforming the S&P 500, which was up 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite, which was up 0.1%.

Early trading was dominated by frenzied buying of uranium-themed stocks and other products, the latest Big Idea to catch the imagination of retail traders. By 9:50 AM ET (1350 GMT), Cameco (NYSE:CCJ) – the largest North American producer – was up 6.2%, while Uranium Energy (NYSE:UEC) was up 8.1%. Uranium futures have risen over 33% since the middle of August, as a narrative of an undersupplied global market has combined with short-term price spikes in spot power markets in Europe and North America due to low generation from renewables.

Mystery surrounded the other major news of the open, after the official Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) account of cryptocurrency Litecoin deleted a tweet claiming it had struck a long-term partnership deal with Walmart. While the tweet corroborated a legitimate-seeming press release issued through the Globe Newswire organization, it was not independently confirmed by Walmart, and the release also contained an erroneous email address for the supposed media contact at the retail giant. Walmart (NYSE:WMT) stock initially rose over 1% before retreating to be up 0.5%.

Walmart, which attracted attention to its plans for potential crypto cooperation some months back with advertisements for a project manager, subsequently issued a statement denying any linkup with Litecoin.

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