Defensive Stocks Buoy Wall Street

(Reuters) - Gains in defensives helped U.S. stocks bounce off session lows on Thursday, even as sentiment remained fragile after a spike in new coronavirus cases in China renewed worries over the scale of the epidemic and its likely impact. The S&P 500 fell as much as 0.6% in early trading after China reported a record spike in deaths and thousands more infections using a new diagnosis method at Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak.