Wall Street’s main indexes opened higher on Monday, helped by growth and a jump in bank stocks, after the benchmark S&P 500 hovered near a grim market milestone late last week.
US President Joe Biden indicated today that he would reconsider China’s tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Appearing in Tokyo for the launch of a new Asia-Pacific trade initiative, the US president said he was looking at removing some of the punitive import duties imposed on China by former President Donald Trump.
Analysts pointed to positive market sentiment after the S&P 500 briefly plunged into a “bear market” on Friday after stocks edged up — defined as a drop of more than 20 percent from the market’s peak.
About 25 minutes into the trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.1 percent at 31,619.50.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent to 3,937.92, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.7 percent to 11,429.00.
Among individual companies, VMware jumped 18.4 percent, after reports it is in talks to be acquired by Broadcom. Broadcom fell 4.7 percent.
“Markets have been on a rally for quite some time,” wrote Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Investment Management.
Equities have been volatile as investors assess the impact of China’s COVID policies and monetary tightening on the outlook for the world’s largest economies. Beijing reported a record number of cases, revived concerns about a lockdown, and adopted a slew of measures to further stabilize the economy.