Investing.com - Wall Street opened higher as investors shrugged off trade war worry and looked ahead to earnings season.
The S&P 500 was up 13 points or 0.53% to 2,618.18 as of 9:37 AM ET (13:37 GMT) while the Dow composite increased 192 points or 0.80% to 24,124.94 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite rose over 59 points or 0.86% to 6,974.57.
Tensions eased from Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on China. Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday that the trade turbulence could be “benign.”
Trump tweeted over the weekend that China could remove its trade barriers but on Monday the Foreign Ministry of China blamed the U.S. for trade agitation.
“The United States with one hand wields the threat of sanctions, and at the same time says they are willing to talk. I’m not sure who the United States is putting on this act for,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.
Investors were also looking forward to the start of the earnings season, which kicks off on Friday. U.S. banks JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) are expected to release their first-quarter results.
Technology stocks were among the biggest gainers after the morning bell. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose 1.33% while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was up 1.43% and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 1.40%. Spotify increased 0.78% while Twitter moved forward 0.43%.
Elsewhere Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) struggled for direction, inching down 0.11% ahead of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's testimony to Congress on Tuesday over the unfolding privacy scandal and Casi Pharma dipped 5.44%.
In Europe stocks were mixed. Germany’s DAX rose two points or 0.02% while in France the CAC 40 decreased one and a half points or 0.03% and in London, the FTSE 100 was down 26 points or 0.37%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 gained seven points or 0.21% while Spain’s IBEX 35 surged 46 points or 0.48%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.06% to $1,335.30 a troy ounce while crude oil futures increased 1.39% to $62.92 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.23% to 89.61.