Investing.com – Wall Street jumped on Tuesday after comments from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin raised hopes that China and the U.S. can find a possible breakthrough in their drawn-out trade war, while a report indicated that China would extend an import tariff waiver to more buyers of U.S. soybeans.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that he will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for trade talks in early October. He also clarified that the Trump administration had requested Chinese officials cancel their U.S. trip early, which had caused markets to pull back last week.
The Dow gained 112 points or 0.4% by 9:49 AM ET (13:49 GMT), while the S&P 500 rose 14 points or 0.5% and the Nasdaq composite was up 39 points or 0.5%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) gained 1.5% after Jefferies upgraded it to 'buy' from 'hold', saying consensus estimates for iPhone sales are too conservative and its opportunities in services are underestimated. Other technology stocks were higher, with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rising 0.4% and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) up 1%, after it too won a court case in the EU which had threatened to impose onerous new obligations on its search filtering.
Elsewhere, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slumped 1% on news of a lawsuit alleging CEO Elon Musk urged shareholders to overpay for its 2016 purchase of SolarCity. Blackberry (TSX:BB) tumbled 16.8% after posting another miss on earnings and revenue.
In commodities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was flat at 98.178 and gold futures fell 0.5% to $1,524.45 a troy ounce. Crude oil futures lost 1.1% to $57.99 a barrel.