Stocks rose on Thursday, marking a third consecutive daily rally as investors hope for an easing of President Trump’s trade wars and weigh comments from a Federal Reserve official on tariffs’ economic impacts.
The S&P 500 gained 2 percent after stalling in early trading. The index has seesawed this week: Monday saw a sharp sell-off, followed by three days of sizable gains after President Trump on Tuesday said that he was prepared to be “very nice” in trade negotiations with China.
The rally then paused after officials in China said they were not holding talks with the United States about easing trade tensions. But indexes continued to swing on scraps of information about tariffs and monetary policy, in the absence of concrete developments about the escalating global trade war.
On Thursday, Christopher Waller, a Fed governor, told Bloomberg that the economic hit from Mr. Trump’s tariffs would take time to show up in the data, suggesting that the central bank was not poised to lower interest rates soon. But when asked what would prompt him to favor a rate cut, Mr. Waller said: “If I saw enough movement in the unemployment rate to make me think that things were going bad, or growth prospects started tanking, or consumer spending started really going down, then I’d be ready to go.”
He Yadong, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, said on Thursday that “there are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States, and any claims about progress in China-U.S. economic and trade negotiations are baseless rumors without factual evidence.”
A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, reiterated China’s stance, which is that the tariff war was started by the United States and that China would only engage in talks under certain conditions. “China’s attitude is consistent and clear: If you want to fight, we will fight to the end; if you want to talk, the door is open,” he said.
The day before, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed speculation that Mr. Trump was considering unilaterally lowering tariffs on China and emphasized that any moves to de-escalate trade tensions would need to be mutual. “I don’t think either side believes that the current tariff levels are sustainable,” he said.
In other developments on Thursday:
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Big companies reporting their latest earnings warned that tariffs and economic uncertainty would dent profits in the months ahead. PepsiCo and Merck cut their earnings forecasts, while American Airlines withdrew its previous forecast for the rest of the year, until “the economic outlook becomes clearer.”
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A rise in major technology stocks boosted the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index, which gained 2.7 percent for the day. Shares in Amazon were up more than 3 percent, as were shares in the chip giant Nvidia.
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The U.S. dollar fell against several major currencies, including the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.
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The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, which move inversely to prices, fell to 4.31 percent.
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Oil futures recovered some ground, with Brent crude up about 0.4 percent, to more than $66 a barrel.
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Stocks in Asia and Europe were mixed: Japan’s main index was up, Hong Kong and South Korea were down, and markets in Britain, France and Germany were roughly flat.
Colby Smith and Danielle Kaye contributed reporting and Siyi Zhao contributed research.
