President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to speak this week, the White House said on Monday, days after Trump accused China of violating a Geneva agreement to roll back tariffs and trade restrictions. Beijing said it would safeguard its interests and that the accusation was groundless.
The Trump administration wants countries to provide their best offer on trade negotiations by Wednesday as officials seek to accelerate talks with multiple partners ahead of a self-imposed deadline in just five weeks, according to a draft letter to negotiating partners seen by Reuters.
“The most important thing for investors is that the administration wasn’t going to impose those much-larger-than-expected tariffs and just leave them on, which would have almost certainly led to a recession,” said Chris Zaccarelli, Chief Investment Officer at Northlight Asset Management.
“The fact that the U.S. is actively engaged with so many trading partners – China, the UK, Japan, the EU, etc. – has investors feeling more optimistic that we will avoid a recession.”
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In May, a softening of Trump’s harsh trade stance allowed a recovery in risky assets, with the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq posting their biggest monthly percentage gain since November 2023. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 214.16 points, or 0.51%, to 42,519.64, the S&P 500 gained 34.43 points, or 0.58%, to 5,970.37 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 156.34 points, or 0.81%, to 19,398.96. Information technology stocks rose 1.5%, boosted by 2.9% gains in Nvidia. Chipmaker Broadcom hit a fresh record high after the company said it has begun to ship its latest networking chip that aims to speed AI. It rose 3.2%
“Commentary that Trump and Xi will speak started getting discussed yesterday and chips are likely a topic on the table,” said Angelo Zino, a senior equity analyst at CFRA Research. “Given Nvidia is essentially currently locked out of China, any discussion is prone to favor Nvidia and chips rather than hurt the story.”
A U.S. Labor Department report showed job openings increased in April, but layoffs picked up, signaling a slowing labor market as tariffs impact the economic outlook.
Factory orders dropped sharply in April, as the boost from front-loading of purchases ahead of tariffs faded. Data from the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau showed a 3.7% fall, after an unrevised 3.4% jump in March.
Monthly jobs data on Friday will offer more signs on how trade uncertainty is affecting the world’s biggest economy.
Shares of Wells Fargo were trading higher in post market trading after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced that the bank will no longer have to operate under a $1.95 trillion asset cap the regulator imposed on the bank in 2018 following its long-running sales practices scandal.
Wells Fargo shares ended the day 1.2% higher, but were trading 2% higher after the bell.
Shares of Kenvue dropped 6%, leading declines on the benchmark S&P 500 index. The company, which makes consumer health products, said at a Deutsche Bank conference that retailers in the U.S. and China are destocking products due to uncertainty over tariffs.
Dollar General surged 15.8% as the discount retailer raised its annual sales forecast after surpassing quarterly sales expectations.
Shares of image-sharing platform Pinterest rose 3.8% after JPMorgan raised the stock to overweight from neutral.
Shares of Reddit fell 1.1% after the social media platform was down for over 29,000 users on Tuesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 15.69 billion shares, compared with the 17.8 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.32-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 171 new highs and 53 new lows on the NYSE.
On the Nasdaq, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.07-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 31 new 52-week highs and 4 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 99 new highs and 60 new lows.
