Stocks begin their recovery

U.S. stocks surged Monday recovering from some of the wreckage left by two weeks of brutal trading that wiped out trillions of dollars in market value.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 409 points, or 1.7 percent, in trading Monday. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were both up about 1.5 percent. The gains were buoyed by strength in the share prices of oil and gas companies.

U.S. investors have been torn between enthusiasm for the massive tax cut passed by Congress last year that could provide a huge stimulus to an economy already at full employment and growing fears that interest rates will jump as the federal government borrows massive amounts to cover its growing deficits.

The Dow swung more than 1,000 points, or about 4 percent on Friday, capping one of the worst weeks on Wall Street since the global financial crisis.

Gun maker to file for bankruptcy

MADISON, N.C. — Remington, the gun maker beset by falling sales and lawsuits tied to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, has reached a financing deal that would allow it to continue operating as it seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The maker of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used in the Connecticut shooting that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead in 2012, said Monday that the agreement with lenders will reduce its debt by about $700 million and add about $145 million in new capital.

The company was cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting, but investors repulsed by the massacres distanced themselves from the company’s owner, investment firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus acquired the gun maker in 2007, just when gun sales began to skyrocket.

Firearm background checks, a reliable barometer of gun sales, had risen steadily for at least a decade.

That changed last year with the election of President Donald Trump, and it has taken a toll on the gun industry.

Gun sales spike on the election of candidates who are perceived to be more likely to pursue more stringent gun control laws, whether or not there is any truth in that perception.

The opposite has occurred since Trump was elected. He became the first sitting president to address the National Rifle Association in three decades, telling members at their annual meeting last spring that “You have a true friend and champion in the White House.”

Remington Outdoor Co., the nation’s oldest gun maker, will attempt to file a prepackaged reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Delaware under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code.

— From wire reports