U.S. stocks opened the Wall Street session with strong gains, led by Nasdaq.

U.S. stock benchmarks opened the Wall Street session on Monday with strong gains, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index outperforming supported by semiconductor and automotive stocks. The session opened with a strong rebound in major U.S. stock indexes following the losses sustained last week amid the New Year's holidays.

In terms of trading, the performance of U.S. stock indexes at the opening was as follows:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 183 points, or 0.44%, to record 42,915.87 points.
• The S&P 500 index increased by 1.01% or 60 points, reaching 6,002.83 points.
• The Nasdaq 100 index gained 1.6% or 29.68 points, recording 19,930.41 points.
• The Russell 2000 index for small U.S. companies rose by 0.80% or 15.81 points, reaching 2,284.64 points.

On the individual trading front, semiconductor stocks led the opening session gains after Apple’s main supplier Foxconn reported record revenues for the fourth quarter. Nvidia and Broadcom stocks rose by about 3.3% and 2.9% respectively, while Micron Technology shares increased by 9%, becoming the highest gainers in percentage terms.

On another note, shares of American automakers Ford and General Motors increased by about 2% after a report published by The Washington Post indicated that the more conservative tariff policies to be implemented by Trump would not ignite a global trade war, as they would be narrower than expected, suggesting that tariffs would only cover basic imports.