By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rallying worldwide Monday after President Donald Trump relaxed some of his tariffs, for now at least.
The S&P 500 was 1.5% higher in early trading. It’s coming off a chaotic week where it careened through historic swings as financial markets struggled to catch up with Trump’s moves on tariffs, which investors fear could lead to a recession if not reduced.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 441 points, or 1.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2% higher.
Apple, Nvidia and other big technology companies led the way on Wall Street after Trump said he was exempting smartphones, computers and some other electronics from some of his stiff tariffs, which could ultimately more than double prices for U.S. customers of many goods coming from China. Such an exemption should help U.S. importers, which would not have to choose between passing on the higher costs to their customers or taking a hit to their own profits.
Apple climbed 5.3%, Nvidia rose 2.3% Dell Technologies jumped 5.9%.
Stock markets in other countries likewise bounced following the cooldown in Trump’s trade war with China, the world’s second-largest economy. Indexes climbed 2.4% in France, 2.7% in Germany, 1.2% in Japan and 1% in South Korea.
But the relief may prove fleeting. Trump’s tariff rollout broadly has been full of fits and starts, and officials in his administration said this most recent exemption on electronics is only temporary.
China’s commerce ministry nevertheless welcomed the change in a Sunday statement as a small step even as it called for the U.S. to completely cancel the rest of its tariffs. China’s leader Xi Jinping on Monday said no one wins in a trade war as he kicked off a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia, hoping to present China as a force for stability in contrast with Trump’s frenetic moves on tariffs.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs rose 2.7% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. It joined other big banks in doing so, such as JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Perhaps more encouragingly for Wall Street, the bond market was also showing signals of increasing calm. Treasury yields eased a bit following their sudden and scary rise last week, which seemed to rattle not only investors but also Trump himself.
Treasury yields usually drop when fear is high in the market because U.S. government bonds have historically been seen as some of the world’s safest investments, if not the safest. But last week, yields rose unusually sharply for Treasury bonds. The value of the U.S. dollar also fell against other currencies in another move suggesting investors may no longer see the United States as the best place to keep their cash during moments of stress.
Trump noted the moves in the bond market, which showed investors “were getting a little queasy,” when he announced a 90-day pause on many of his tariffs last week.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased back to 4.40%. It had jumped to 4.48% on Friday from 4.01% the week before.
In China, stock indexes rose 2.4% in Hong Kong and 0.8% in Shanghai after the government reported that China’s exports surged 12.4% in March from a year earlier in a last-minute flurry of activity as companies rushed to beat increases in U.S. tariffs imposed by Trump.
AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.
