U.S. stocks rallied more than 1% on Thursday, buoyed by gains in the trade-sensitive technology and industrial sectors as China expressed hope on trade negotiations with the United States, easing concerns that rising tensions could stoke a recession. The TSX rose just shy of 0.7 per cent, propelled by Wall Street’s advance.
China’s commerce ministry said both sides are discussing the next round of talks scheduled for September, but progress would be determined by whether Washington could create favorable conditions.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Fox News radio interview that trade talks were scheduled for Thursday “at a different level,” but did not provide details.
Some analysts cautioned that the comments from China were light on substance, and pointed to month-end rebalancing on Friday as supportive of stock gains.
“It sounds to me like more of a continued slow-walking,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta. “But clearly it is time to not ratchet things up further.”
Heavyweight tech stocks with tariff exposure, such as Apple Inc, up 1.69%, and Microsoft, up 1.89%, boosted the technology sector by 1.73% for its best day since Aug. 16.
Chipmakers, which draw a large part of their revenue from China, also gained, sending the Philadelphia semiconductor index up 2.25%.
Industrial names that have also been highly correlated to trade progress, such as United Technologies, advanced, with the sector up 1.77%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 326.15 points, or 1.25%, to 26,362.25, the S&P 500 gained 36.63 points, or 1.27%, to 2,924.57 and the Nasdaq Composite added 116.51 points, or 1.48%, to 7,973.39.
Still, the three main indexes were on course to log their worst monthly performance and first monthly decline since a selloff in May, on worries the intensified trade battle between the world’s two largest economies will lead to a global recession.
The Trump administration on Wednesday made official its additional 5% tariff on $300 billion in Chinese imports and set collection dates of Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, prompting several hundreds of U.S. companies to warn of price hikes.
A number of companies, including electronics retailer Best Buy Co Inc and teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co, reported results earlier on Thursday and warned of the impact from tariffs.
Shares of Best Buy slid 7.99%, making it one of the worst performing issues on the S&P 500, while those of Abercrombie tumbled 15.10%.
Dollar General Corp was the best performer among S&P 500 companies, rising 10.68% on an upbeat full-year profit forecast. The S&P retail index climbed 1.67%.
Canada
The S&P/TSX composite index ended up 112.84 points, or 0.69 per cent, at 16,384.49.
The energy sector saw large gains as crude advanced, but gold declined as investors regained some appetite for risk taking.
The October crude contract closed up 93 cents at US$56.71 per barrel and the October natural gas contract ended up 7.4 cents at US$2.30 per mmBTU. The December gold contract ended down $12.20 at US$1,536.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up 1.3 cents at US$2.58 a pound.
The financial sector performed well, despite an earnings miss by TD Bank. TD ended up 0.5 per cent, and Bank of Montreal, which suffered significant losses this week after disappointing results, closed up 2 per cent.
With files from Reuters and staff