U.S. stocks climbed on Monday after the United States and China put their trade differences “on hold” to work on a wider agreement, while sentiment was also buoyed by the nearly $28 billion worth of merger activity.
The truce sparked a broad rally, with all the 11 major S&P sectors higher and the small-cap Russell 2000 hitting a record high for the fourth session in a row.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday the United States and China had agreed to drop their tariff threats, while China on Monday praised a significant dialing back of tensions.
“I suspect that we’ll continue to trend higher sans some major disappointing news,” said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York.
“This is an indication of what we’ll see near term, because we are through earnings, relatively light on macro data, and with geopolitics, it seems like some of the emotion has been reduced between now and the Korean summit.”
The industrial sector .SPLRCI advanced 1.6 percent. Boeing (BA.N), which sells about a fourth of its commercial aircraft to Chinese customers, jumped 3.3 percent, the biggest gainer on the Dow and providing the maximum support to the blue-chip index.
At 11:25 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was up 316.70 points, or 1.28 percent, at 25,031.79, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 19.20 points, or 0.71 percent, at 2,732.17 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 35.76 points, or 0.49 percent, at 7,390.10.'
General Electric (GE.N) rose 3.1 percent on an $11.1 billion deal to merge its transportation business with rail equipment maker Wabtec (WAB.N), which jumped about 5 percent to a near three-year high.
Still, not all U.S. business leaders were happy with the trade war truce, with some cautioning that Washington would find it tough to rebuild momentum to address what they see as troubling Chinese policies.
AK Steel (AKS.N) and U.S. Steel (X.N) both fell about 3.5 percent following a delay in implementing tariffs on Chinese imports.
Micron (MU.O) surged 3.2 percent, the most on the S&P, after the chipmaker lifted its current-quarter forecast.
The easing of the trade dispute also boosted chipmakers, whose major clients include Chinese firms, with the Philadelphia chip index .SOX gaining 0.8 percent. The technology sector .SPLRCT rose 0.7 percent.
Tesla (TSLA.O) jumped 3.9 percent on pricing of M
(Reuters)
