By Sruthi Shankar
(Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than 200 points on Thursday as industrial stocks gained after the White House trade adviser sought to play down chances of a trade war due to protectionist policies.
President Donald Trump's tough approach to global trade, including new tariffs on metals imports, will not necessarily provoke retaliation from trading partners, Peter Navarro, the top adviser on international economic exchanges, said on CNBC.
"It was very destabilizing to the markets that the White House is aware of that and they dialed back the rhetoric to an extent," said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group in New York.
Corporates, especially manufacturers, have been under pressure from Trump's tariff plans, including a move to impose duties of up to $60 billion on Chinese imports while pushing for $100 billion cut in trade surplus.
Thursday's gains helped the Dow (DJI) erase much of its losses since Trump announced tariff plans on March 1. The blue-chip index is still trading about 6 percent below its record highs hit on Jan. 26 and was last up 0.82 percent at 24,960.4 points.
"Prices of equities have become modestly more attractive in the recent days as a result of the compression in prices," said Kenny.
The S&P industrial index (SPLRCI) rose 0.44 percent and was on course for its first session of gains in four days.
General Electric (N:GE), 3M (N:MMM) and Caterpillar (N:CAT) were up more than 1 percent. Boeing (N:BA), which investors say may be particularly vulnerable to a trade war, was marginally up.
The S&P 500 (SPX) pared some of its early gains and was up 0.13 percent at 2,752.97 as energy (SPNY) and material stocks (SPLRCM) weighed. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) fell 0.04 percent to 7,494.06 points.
The markets also found support from economic data that showed weekly jobless claims fell last week, pointing to a strong labor market.
A bigger-than-expected rise in U.S. import prices in February indicated a steady pick up in inflation.
Among stocks, Alibaba (N:BABA) jumped 3.2 percent on report that the Chinese e-commerce giant was planning a secondary listing in China.
Dollar General (N:DG) rose 3.6 percent after the discount retailer's quarterly same-store sales beat estimates.
Qorvo (O:QRVO) tumbled 5.9 percent to the bottom of the S&P 500 after Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) said the RF chipmaker could lose out to Broadcom (O:AVGO) for a spot in upcoming iPhones.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE for a 1.55-to-1 ratio, and for a 1.13-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.