The S&P 500 and the Dow rose on Tuesday, led by gains in industrial and consumer staple shares, while weakness in technology stocks dragged down the Nasdaq. Stocks have been volatile in the session after the main US indexes notched their best day in 2-1/2 years on Monday on waning concerns of a trade war between the United States and China.
"Right now, the biggest driver in the market seems to be around the trade news and it is looking more like some of these tariff discussions are negotiations rather than strong protectionist measures," said Lisa Erickson, head of traditional investments at US Bank Wealth Management in Helena, Montana. "But there's going to be continued volatility in the short term and a lot of it will depend on how the fundamental news flow comes out."
US stocks suffered their worst declines of the year last week after President Donald Trump moved to impose tariffs on Chinese imports of up to $60 billion. But the sentiment has improved after reports that the countries were willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances. At 13:00 pm ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.67 percent at 24,365.61 and the S&P 500 rose 0.29 percent to 2,666.16.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.33 percent at 7,196.70. Facebook dropped 2.3 percent as it continued to be weighed down by data privacy issues. The company faces an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission to explain how it allowed data of 50 million users get into the hands of a political consultancy. Twitter fell more than 7 percent after short-seller Citron Research said it was short on the stock, adding that the company was "most vulnerable" to privacy regulations.
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