(Photo: Xinhua)

NEW YORK, May 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks surged on Monday as investors eyed some encouraging news about a potential coronavirus vaccine.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked 911.95 points, or 3.85 percent, to 24,597.37. The S&P 500 rose 90.21 points, or 3.15 percent, to 2,953.91. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 220.27 points, or 2.44 percent, to 9,234.83.

All the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended higher, with energy and industrials up 7.55 percent and 6.61 percent, respectively, outpacing the rest.

Shares of Moderna jumped nearly 20 percent after the U.S. biotech company announced positive interim clinical data for a potential coronavirus vaccine.

Wall Street also paid close attention to the latest comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

The U.S. economy will recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the process could stretch through until the end of 2021, Powell said.

"Assuming there's not a second wave of the coronavirus, I think you'll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year," Powell said in an excerpt of an interview that aired Sunday morning on CBS's "Face the Nation."

As of Monday afternoon, more than 1.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States, with over 90,000 deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.