Wall Street drifts higher as it counts down to a highly anticipated US-China meeting on trade
Wall Street drifts higher as it counts down to a highly anticipated US-China meeting on trade
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting higher Friday as Wall Street heads toward the end of an unusually quiet week.
The S&P 500 was up 0.4% in early trading and on track to erase what had been a small loss for the week. This may be the first week in seven where the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts moves by less than 1.5%, after getting rocked first by fears about President Donald Trump’s trade war and then by hopes that he’ll relent on some of his tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 127 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.
The big event for the week is likely coming on Saturday, when trading will be closed in financial markets. That’s when high-level U.S. and Chinese officials will be meeting in Switzerland for their first talks since Trump launched an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The fear among investors and economists is that the tariffs could cause a recession unless they’re reduced by enough.
Trump on Friday floated the idea of bringing tariffs on Chinese imports down to 80% from their current 145% rate, but he said it’ll be up to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will be in Switzerland. While that would indeed be a reduction, it would still be high, and Trump’s posting on social media caused a brief jolt in financial markets, where futures for U.S. stocks sank immediately.
But markets later calmed as the wait continued for what U.S. and Chinese officials will say after their meeting.
Trump also talked up the potential for more trade deals that could be on the way, following his announcement the day before on an agreement with the United Kingdom.
“Many Trade Deals in the hopper, all good (GREAT!) ones!” he said on his Truth Social network.
In the meantime, the flow of earnings reports for the start of the year from companies is slowing but still moving the market.
Lyft rallied 17.6% after delivering a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue fell short.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the chip giant known as TSMC, offered an encouraging report after saying its revenue in April leaped 48.1% from a year earlier. That sent its stock that trades in the United States up 2.5%.
They helped offset a 9.6% drop for travel website Expedia. It fell 10% after it trimmed its full-year bookings forecast. The owner of Vrbo and Hotels.com highlighted a 7% decline in travel demand to the U.S., including a 30% decline in bookings from Canada.
Other travel-related companies, including Hilton and Airbnb, have reported a similar softening in travel demand to the U.S. in their recent earnings reports.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were higher in Europe after finishing mixed in Asia.
Stocks rose 0.4% in Hong Kong but fell 0.3% in Shanghai after China reported that its exports rose at a faster-than-expected 8.1% annual pace in April. Exports to the United States dropped more than 20%, however, as Trump’s steep tariff increases took effect. China is the world’s biggest exporter.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding at 4.37%, where it was late Thursday.
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AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.
By STAN CHOE
AP Business Writer
