US STOCKS-Wall Street ends higher to stem coronavirus sell-off

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* Fed opens dollar swap lines with nine new countries
* Trump upbeat on stimulus talks
* Ford draws down $15.4 billion in credit
* Indexes up: Dow 1%, S&P 500 0.5%, Nasdaq 2.3%

(Updates with Bank of America recession forecast, S&P 500
market cap)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks managed to post
gains on Thursday after recent steep losses as policymakers
around the world took further emergency actions to try to help
financial markets cope with deep coronavirus-driven economic
damage.
Nasdaq outperformed other major indexes, ending 2.3% higher,
fueled by gains in Amazon.com AMZN.O , Microsoft MSFT.O and
Facebook FB.O .
The Federal Reserve opened swap lines with central banks in
nine new countries to ensure the world's dollar-dependent
financial system continued to function. It was the latest in a host of steps taken by the U.S.
central bank over the last two weeks, including cutting
borrowing costs to near zero and providing billions of dollars
more for cheap credit.
The European Central Bank pledged late on Wednesday to buy
750 billion euros ($820 billion) in sovereign debt through 2020.
President Donald Trump called on U.S. health regulators to
expedite potential therapies aimed at treating COVID-19, the
respiratory disease caused by the virus, and the White House
sounded upbeat on the chances of passage of hundreds of billions
of dollars of aid in Congress.
Policymakers will need to keep providing support in order to
provide liquidity to the financial system, said Quincy Krosby,
chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New
Jersey.
"It is not just about the Fed," Krosby said. "It is about
the fiscal side of the equation. The question for the market is,
how much do we actually need, and the severity of the crisis is
suggesting we're going to need amounts we never initially
thought of."
Even with the emergency moves, analysts in a Reuters poll
gave a median 80% chance of a U.S. recession this
year. Bank of America's economics team in a note
Thursday said, "the U.S. recession is here."
The recent sharp market volatility continued, with the S&P
500 index falling as much as 3.3% during the session.
And Thursday's gains did little to restore the markets after
the pounding stocks have suffered in the past month. The S&P 500
remains down about 29% from the record closing high it hit a
month ago after last week confirming its first bear market since
the financial crisis, and the Dow erased virtually the last of
its gains under Trump's presidency on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 188.27 points,
or 0.95%, to 20,087.19, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 11.29 points,
or 0.47%, to 2,409.39 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
160.73 points, or 2.3%, to 7,150.58.
Helping the day's sentiment, U.S. crude oil prices spiked by
25% in their largest single-day gain on record, while the S&P
500 energy index .SPNY rose 6.8%, leading gains among S&P 500
sectors. "Active investors are using this as an opportunity to maybe
pick up what might be perceived as bargains because nobody's
really sure how to value stocks right now," said Robert Pavlik,
chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at
SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York.
Ford Motor Co F.N was the latest major U.S. corporation to
bolster its cash reserves to ride out the virus impact, drawing
down more than $15 billion from existing credit lines. Ford
shares ended down 0.7%.
The virus' impact on jobs was also in focus as official data
showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits
surged to a 2-1/2-year high last week as companies in the
services sector laid off workers because of the pandemic.
Late on Wednesday, New York Stock Exchange owner
Intercontinental Exchange Inc ICE.N said the market would
temporarily close its trading floors and move fully to
electronic trading starting next week. While the S&P 500 added $94 billion in market capitalization
on Thursday, it is down $8.09 trillion since its Feb. 19 record
close, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices' analyst Howard
Silverblatt.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.64-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.21-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and 94 new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 13 new highs and 569 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 17.08 billion shares, compared
to the 15 billion average for the full session over the last 20
trading days.