Progress in U.S.-China trade talks sparks world stock rally

Reuters  |  NEW YORK 

By David Randall

Europe's broad Stoxx 600 index rallied 1.4 percent. In midday trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 359.04 points, or 1.41 percent, to 25,798.43, the S&P 500 gained 24.12 points, or 0.88 percent, to 2,769.85 and the Nasdaq Composite added 35.31 points, or 0.48 percent, to 7,462.26.

and the reached a consensus in principle on some key issues during the talks, China's state agency said on Friday. Negotiations will continue next week in as investors hope for an end to the trade war between the world's two largest economies.

"The next potential steps in the U.S. protectionist push could be pivotal for the global outlook," Lynch economists wrote in a note. "With the trade war already starting to hurt the U.S., we expect the to pull its punch."

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.65 percent. The index is up nearly 9 percent for the year.

Emerging markets were set for their first back-to-back weekly loss since late last year. The MSCIEF index of emerging- market stocks dropped 0.7 percent, leaving it up approximately 7.6 percent for the year.

Though there were signs of progress in the trade discussions, some investors remained cautious on whether tariffs would soon be eliminated.

"We expect that the longer-term direction of tariffs on imports from is likely to be downward, but we expect this to be a gradual process and believe that some of the recently imposed tariffs might still be in effect through the 2020 election," economists at wrote in a note.

The broad stock rallies helped pull investors out of the safety of government bonds, sending yields higher. Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 3/32 in price to yield 2.6698 percent, from 2.659 percent late on Thursday.

U.S. was expected to sign a bill Friday that would prevent another partial federal government shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday morning.

The dollar index rose 0.06 percent, with the euro down 0.24 percent to $1.1272.

reached 2019 highs above $65 per barrel after OPEC-led supply cuts and a bigger-than-expected cut by this week encouraged investors.

The global Brent benchmark gained 2.2 percent to $66.01 per barrel. It has risen over 4.5 percent this week.

U.S. crude rose 2.1 percent to $55.58 per barrel.

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by and Susan Thomas)

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Fri, February 15 2019. 23:10 IST