Wall Street rose on Tuesday as investors shrugged off President Donald Trump’s comments over the Memorial Day weekend that the U.S. was far from a trade deal with China.
The S&P 500 rose 11 points or 0.4% by 9:44 AM ET (13:44 GMT), while the Dowgained 119 points or 0.5% and tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was up 48 points or 0.6%.
Trump said on Monday that the country was not ready for a deal, but he did expect a deal to be made with Beijing in the future. The U.S. imposition of higher tariffs on imports from China, combined with its sanctions against telecoms giant Huawei, have stoked fears of Chinese countermeasures that could further weaken the world economy.
Hu Xijin of China’s Global Times said that China is “seriously considering” restricting rare earth exports to the U.S., a measure that would hit the manufacture of a raft of high-tech products that depend on them.
Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:FCAU) stock surged 8.2% after it proposed merging with France’s Renault (PA:RENA). The French company is expected to decide on the deal as early as next week.
Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) fell 1.4% after the payment technology company said it was merging with Total System Services (NYSE:TSS) in a $21.5 billion stock deal. Total System jumped 6.4%.
Elsewhere, technology stocks were higher, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) up 0.7% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gaining 1.1%. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) jumped 1.8% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) rose 5.3% after the launch of its latest Ryzen chip.
Uber (NYSE:UBER) fell 0.8% on news that Ryan Graves, senior vice president for global operations, resigned from the board on Sunday.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.5% to $1,276.95 a troy ounce, while crude oiljumped 0.8% to $59.14. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched up 0.1% to 97.615.