Markets Rise on Word of a Big Spending Plan From Biden: Live Business Updates

• Wall Street is poised to rise when trading begins later Thursday morning, as word is spreading that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will introduce a multitrillion-dollar spending plan to counter the coronavirus’s impact on the U.S. economy.

• Mr. Biden’s plan is expected to have an initial focus on expanding the country’s vaccination program and virus testing capacity, Jim Tankersley reports. Mr. Biden is to provide details in a speech Thursday evening in Delaware.

• Later in the morning, economists will analyze the newest tally of U.S. unemployment insurance claims. Quite apart from the boisterous financial markets, hiring remains dreadful in the U.S. economy, with employers recording a net loss of 140,000 jobs in December. Last spring, as the pandemic arrived in the United States, 22 million jobs disappeared. Nearly 10 million remain lost.

• European markets were gaining, with the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.5 percent in late-morning trading. The CAC 40 in France was 0.3 percent higher and the DAX in Germany gained 0.5 percent. The gains were despite reports that Italy’s government was on the verge of collapse.

• Asian indexes ended the session mostly higher, with the Nikkei in Japan up 0.9 percent, but the Shanghai Composite in China fell 0.9 percent.

• The latest data from China shows a humming economy. Exports rose 18 percent in December from a year earlier, reflecting global demand for work-from-home devices. Imports also increased, 6.5 percent from a year earlier, a sign of a strengthening consumer economy inside the country.

• Over all, China will probably be the only major economy to grow in 2020. Germany’s economy, usually regarded as Europe’s strongest, reported a 5 percent contraction in 2020.

• Bond yields rose following word of Mr. Biden’s spending plan. Elsewhere, oil prices meandered, with both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate fluctuating between gains and losses.

The Labor Department is expected to provide further evidence of the pandemic’s economic damage when it issues its weekly report on unemployment claims on Thursday morning.

Economists are bracing for a fresh wave of claims as the coronavirus surge batters the service industry. The government reported last week that the economy shed 140,000 jobs in December, the first monthly drop in employment since last spring, with restaurants, bars and hotels recording steep losses. Forecasters expect a sluggish labor market for the immediate future.

“We know that the pandemic is worsening, and with…