Wall Street rose on Thursday afternoon as investors shrugged off fears of an escalating trade conflict between the United States and China and looked forward to the quarterly earnings season. Boeing, among the worst hit stocks on Wednesday after China retaliated with $50 billion in tariffs on US goods, rose 2.4 percent, pulling up the Dow.
On Wednesday, the Dow dived more than 500 points after China and US imposed tariffs on each others products, but closed up 230 points after President Donald Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the administration was involved in a "negotiation" with China rather than a trade war. "There is a lot of bad news on the trade front built into the market. So the ability of the equity markets to push significantly lower is going to be limited," said John Brady, senior vice president at R.J. O'Brien & Associates in Chicago.
China's state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday that the country will win any trade war with the United States.
Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility index eased to a two-week low at 19.21 points. At 13:09 ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.15 percent at 24,542.21. The S&P 500 rose 0.85 percent to 2,667.22 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7 percent at 7,091.65.
The S&P and the Dow were on track to post their first three-day gains in about a month. Ten of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, led by a 2.2 percent rise in the S&P energy index as oil prices rose.
Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Netflix - collectively known as the "FANG" group - were up between 1 percent and 3 percent.