Energy, financials lead Wall St gains before Yellen speech

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

REUTERS - Wall Street was higher on Monday morning, led by a rally in energy stocks and a rebound in financial shares following a pounding on Friday after a dismal jobs report all but ruled out chances of an interest rate hike in June.

The Nasdaq was on course for its highest one-day percentage gain since May 27. The Dow and S&P 500 were on course for their best day since May 25, which was also the last time the Dow ended up more than triple digits in terms of points.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will likely keep the door open to an interest rate hike within the next few months when she speaks at 12:30 p.m. ET (1630 GMT), while striking a balanced tone about the disappointing jobs growth and mixed signals in the economy.

"We are likely to get a dovish speech by Yellen," said Mohannad Aama, Managing Director, Beam Capital Management LLC in New York.

"She is not likely to tip her hand in one way or the other, but the impact or potential surprise of a rate hike (when the Fed meets) next week is going to be high."

Yellen's speech will be the last public comment by central bank officials before their June 14-15 meeting.

Ahead of the speech, traders are pricing in a 5.6 percent chance of a hike in June, while the odds of a July hike was at 35.3 percent, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.

At 10:57 a.m. ET (1457 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 105.41 points, or 0.59 percent, at 17,912.47.

The S&P 500 was up 9.79 points, or 0.47 percent, at 2,108.92 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 20.90 points, or 0.42 percent, at 4,963.42.

Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors were higher, led by the energy index's 1.6 percent gain as crude prices hit a six-month high of $50.83.

Exxon and Chevron were up over 1 percent.

The financial index gained 0.7 percent. The index dropped 1.4 percent on Friday, weighing on the entire market, as chances of a rate hike in June faded.

Goldman was up 1 percent, while JPMorgan gained 0.8 percent.

AbbVie was down 4.3 percent at $62.20 after Cowen cut its rating on the stock to "market perform" from "outperform".

Wal-Mart's shares were up 0.5 percent at $71.19 after Jefferies upgraded the stock to "buy".

The consumer discretionary index was down 0.09 percent, led by a drop of more than 2 percent in Home Depot and Lowe's.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,037 to 855. On the Nasdaq, 1,759 issues rose and 853 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 32 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 63 new highs and 12 new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)