Investing.com – Wall Street jumped on Monday on trade optimism after U.S. President Donald Trump said China had called him and wanted to restart negotiations.
The Chinese side didn't confirm the calls, but investor nerves were soothed as markets turned positive. Tensions escalated on Friday after both countries increased import tariffs on each other's goods and Trump threatened to impose a broader boycott on China.
"Whether or not he (Trump) has a phone call with China doesn't matter, the point is that he is attempting to keep the September meeting scheduled and get back to the negotiating bit,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.
The Dow jumped 160 points or 0.6% by 9:50 AM ET (13:50 GMT), while the S&P 500 rose 17 points or 0.6% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 54 points or 0.7%.
Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) jumped 3.9% on news that KFC is testing its meat-free chicken nuggets in an Atlanta restaurant. Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM), which owns the KFC chain, gained 1.4%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rebounded 1.9% after falling more than 4% on Friday on fears that it would be badly hit by the new tit-for-tat tariffs, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), another of Friday's heavy losers, rose 1% on reports that it is planning to raise prices of its electric car in China sooner than expected. Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) surged 4% after news that Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) is buying its psoriasis treatment Otezla for $13.4 billion in cash, a deal that is likely to smooth the acquisition of Celgene by Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY). The price is around 30% above analysts' estimates of Otezla's value, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In commodities, crude oil rose 1.2% to $54.84 a barrel while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched up 0.3% to 97.843. Gold futures hit a new six-year high of $1,564.95 before retracing to $1,543.55 a troy ounce, up 0.3% on the day.
-Reuters contributed to this report