Investing.com - Wall Street opened higher on Tuesday as trade talks between the U.S. and China could reportedly extend to a third day, increasing hope that the two largest economies in the world could resolve their differences before a March 1 deadline.
The S&P 500 rose 25 points, or 0.99%, as of 9:30 AM ET (14:30 GMT), while the Dow increased 252 points, or 1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 70 points, or 1%.
The editor-in-chief of China English-language newspaper The Global Times reported that the trade talks haven’t concluded and that he "heard they will continue tomorrow.”
The news comes after an earlier tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said that “talks with China were going very well!”
Investors are also looking ahead to a speech from Trump at 9:00 PM ET (2:00 GMT Wednesday), where he is expected to address the government shutdown and building a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump has said he will not sign a budget unless it includes funding for a wall, which has lead to an impasse with Congress.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) jumped 2.4% after the e-commerce giant took the lead with the highest market capitalization at the close on Monday at $796.78 billion. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 1.89% amid news that Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) founder Larry Ellison holds 3 million shares in the company.
Visa (NYSE:V) increased 1%, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was up 1% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rose 1.4%.
Elsewhere, Pacific Gas & Electric (NYSE:PCG) slumped 12.5% after it was downgraded to junk status by S&P Ratings.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,282.00 a troy ounce and crude oil increased 1.55% to $49.27 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched up 0.3% to 95.55.