Investors cheered news citing President Donald Trump as saying three cabinet officials will meet representatives of China in London on June 9 to discuss a trade deal.
“The market will chase the trade deal carrot any time it’s available. The trick is whether any actual deal gets done,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.
On Thursday, Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke, after weeks of trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals. They left key issues unresolved for future talks.
In early trading, U.S. data showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 139,000 jobs last month after rising by a downwardly revised 147,000 in April. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls advancing by 130,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, in line with expectations.
Following the report, traders bet that Federal Reserve policymakers have little reason to rush on rate cuts. They are seen waiting until September to cut rates, with just one more cut in view by December, based on interest rate futures. Central bank policymakers meet later this month.
“We expect the Fed to remain on hold at this month’s meeting and think a softening in the labor market data is likely required for the Fed to continue its easing cycle,” said Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Weaker-than-expected private payrolls numbers and surveys on the services sector this week had raised concerns that trade uncertainty could slow the economy.
U.S. equities rallied in May, with the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq scoring their biggest monthly percentage gains since November 2023, thanks to softening of Trump’s harsh trade stance and upbeat earnings reports.
On Friday, the S&P 500 hit its highest in over three months, and remained below record highs touched in February by a little more than 2%. The Dow index also rose to a three-month high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 442.88 points, or 1.05%, to 42,762.62, the S&P 500 gained 61.02 points, or 1.03%, to 6,000.32 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 231.50 points, or 1.20%, to 19,529.95.
The S&P gained 1.5% for the week, the Dow 1.17% and Nasdaq 2.18%.
Shares of Tesla rose 3.8% after plunging about 15% on Thursday during Trump’s public feud with Musk, including threats to cut off government contracts with Musk’s companies.
Other megacap companies also rose. Amazon was up 2.7% and Alphabet gained 3.25%.
Wells Fargo rose 1.9% as ratings firm S&P Global upgraded its outlook on Wells Fargo to “positive” from “stable.” Earlier this week, the U.S. bank was released from a $1.95 trillion asset cap.
Broadcom shares fell 5% after the networking and custom AI chipmaker’s quarterly revenue forecast failed to impress investors.
Lululemon shares slumped 19.8% as the sportswear maker cut its annual profit target, citing higher costs from Trump’s tariffs.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.14-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 173 new highs and 34 new lows on the NYSE.
On the Nasdaq, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.52-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 86 new highs and 38 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 14.5 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 17.8 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
