Investing.com – Wall Street rose on Wednesday amid optimism on that U.S. President Donald Trump could sign Congress’s border deal in order to avoid another shutdown – and give himself more time before slapping fresh import tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump is considering signing a bipartisan spending deal on border security that gives him less money than he originally asked for, Sarah Sanders told Fox News in an interview.
The S&P 500 rose 8 points or 0.31% as of 9:31 AM ET (14:31 GMT), while the Dow gained 95 points, or 0.38%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 21 points, or 0.29%.
Investor sentiment was also boosted after Trump said on Tuesday he could push back the March 1 deadline for imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports if the two sides were close to settling their differences. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are scheduled to hold talks on Thursday and Friday in Beijing.
"The market is taking into consideration the fact that they are talking and there's also the deal to avoid another possible government shutdown which is being viewed as a positive," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager, at SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York.
Data earlier in the day showed that U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in January while annual inflation ran at the slowest rate in over one-and-a-half years, increasing chances that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady this year.
Technology stocks were among the top gainers after the morning bell, with Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) up 1.9%, Alphabet A (NASDAQ:GOOGL) up 1% and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rising 0.6%.
Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) gained 1.3%, while Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) jumped 7% after the game maker announced a share buyback plan and said it will cut its global workforce by 8%
TripAdvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP) fell 4.5% after the travel and restaurant website company reported lower-than-expected quarterly earnings despite beating revenue estimates.
- Reuters contributed to this report.