Stocks inched higher on Wall Street this morning after President Donald Trump claimed China was willing to reopen talks on the costly trade war that has roiled markets and dimmed the outlook for global economic growth.
Uncertainty remained high, however, about the next developments in the trade dispute, which has repeatedly seen the sides attempt to negotiate before ending in acrimony and more tariffs and trade penalties.
Big technology companies, which do a lot of business in China and have much riding on the outcome of the trade dispute, rose the most. Apple climbed 2%.
Health care and financial stocks also contributed to the big share of the early gains as the market clawed back some of the heavy losses from last week, which marked its fourth straight weekly loss. On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 600 points after Washington and Beijing each threatened a new round of tariffs on each others goods.
The escalation in the trade conflict had global markets headed for another sell-off until Trump said his trade negotiators had received two very good calls from China on Sunday. Chinas foreign ministry replied, however, that it didnt know what Trump was talking about.
Major indexes in Germany and France rose. Markets in Britain were closed for a national holiday. In Asia, Hong Kongs Hang Seng and Japans benchmark Nikkei 225 closed lower.
Stock markets have been volatile this summer as traders have been whipsawed by the turns in the trade war between the worlds biggest economies.
The conflict escalated once again on Friday, after China announced new tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods. Trump responded angrily on Twitter, at one point saying he hereby ordered U.S. companies with operations in China to consider moving them to other countries, including the U.S.
Trump also later announced that the U.S. would increase existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods to 30% from 25%, and that new tariffs on another $300 billion of imports would be 15% instead of 10%.
