Wall Street ends sharply higher on Trump China comments; Broadcom surges

By Sukriti Gupta and Noel Randewich (Reuters) -Wall Street's main indexes ended sharply higher on Monday, led by gains in Broadcom and other chipmakers, after President Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone about renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, easing investor worries. Lifting sentiment, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network that Trump was on track to meet his Chinese counterpart in South Korea as the two sides work on de-escalating trade frictions that grew late last week. AI-related tech stocks were the biggest winners in Monday's rebound. Broadcom surged almost 10% after partnering with OpenAI to produce the startup's first in-house artificial intelligence processors. The Nasdaq notched its biggest one-day gain since May 27. "AI continues to be the momentum driver, and it's not surprising investors have purchased the dip," said Sam Stovall, Chief Investment Strategist at CFRA Research, adding that investors should remain cautious as long as Trump's dispute with China remains unresolved. Wall Street tumbled on Friday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posting their steepest weekly declines in months. The latest rupture followed China's announcement on Thursday that it would dramatically expand its rare earths export controls. In retaliation, Trump on Friday said he would apply an additional 100% tariff on imports from China and impose export controls on all critical U.S.-made software from November 1. However, over the weekend, Trump said "it will all be fine" and that the U.S. did not want to "hurt" China. China on Sunday blamed the U.S. for the escalation but did not roll out further countermeasures. Other AI-related chipmakers also gained, with Nvidia climbing 2.8% and Micron Technology jumping over 6%. The PHLX chip index soared almost 5%. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo are set to release quarterly results on Tuesday, kicking off an earnings season that investors will watch closely for signs of how tariffs are impacting Wall Street's largest companies. Earnings reports will provide fresh clues on the economy at a time when major official data releases remain delayed due to an ongoing government shutdown. Analysts on average expect S&P 500 companies' third-quarter earnings to grow 8.8% from a year ago, according to LSEG data. The S&P 500 climbed 1.56% to end the session at 6,654.72 points.     The Nasdaq gained 2.21% to 22,694.61 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.29% to 46,067.58 points. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by information technology, followed by a 2.29% gain in consumer discretionary. Following Friday's steep drop and Monday's partial recovery, the S&P 500 is about 1.5% below its record high close reached on October 8. In the Middle East, Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza and Israel sent home Palestinian detainees as part of a ceasefire deal pushed by Trump. Oracle jumped 5.1% after at least two brokerages raised their price target on the AI cloud firm. Estee Lauder advanced 5.8% after a report that Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock's rating to "buy" from "neutral". Fastenal dropped 7.5% after the industrial supplies distributor missed third-quarter profit expectations. Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a 2.5-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 7 new highs and 14 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 91 new highs and 120 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 18.2 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 20.2 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions. (Reporting by Sukriti Gupta and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)

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