After opening in the red, the U.S. markets are now firmly in the green.
The Dow is up 110 points (0.7%).
The S&P 500 is up 8 points (0.4%).
The Nasdaq is up 4 pionts (0.1%).
Interestingly, this comes in the wake of what most would consider bad news.
We just learned industrial production unexpectedly fell 0.3% in January, which was much worse than the 0.2% gain expected. Manufacturing production fell 0.8% in what was the worst drop since 2009.
"Manufacturing output fell 0.8% and drilling and mining 0.9%, but the Fed said the weakness was "partly because of the severe weather that curtailed production in some regions of the country," leading to weather-related plant closures and disruptions at oil and gas drilling facilities," noted Morgan Stanley's Ted Wieseman.
"The cold weather drove up utility output by 4.1%, thanks to increased demand for heating energy," said Pantheon Macroeconomics' Ian Shepherdson. "This matters because the implied jump in energy consumption will feed into real consumers' spending."
Today's gains come on top of Thursday's gains, which came despite weaker-than-expected retail sales data.
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