Wall Street indexes rise over 1 percent as trade worries ease

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street’s major indexes rose more than 1 percent each on Monday as technology stocks jumped and a softer stance by U.S. policymakers on China tariffs powered a rebound from last week’s sell-off.

Led by tech, ten of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher and 29 of the 30 Dow components were in positive territory. Goldman Sachs was the biggest boost to the Dow, while gains in Apple shares led the S&P 500.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC that the president may be open to forming an international coalition to grapple with Chinese trade issues.

“We’re getting a little bit softer commentary from folks with the (Trump) administration,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta. “We’re basically recouping what we lost on Friday.”

Global equity markets came under pressure last week as the United States and China threatened each other with tens of billions worth of tariffs.

Investors will look for further indications of China’s stance on trade relations when Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the Boao Forum, an economic conference in Asia, on Tuesday.

The week also marks the start of earnings season with big U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase , Citigroup and Wells Fargo set to report first-quarter results on Friday.

“Profits are a big part of the bull story,” Lerner said. “We think this earnings season will re-establish the uptrend in the market.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 352.73 points, or 1.47 percent, to 24,285.49, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 38.91 points, or 1.49 percent, to 2,643.38 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 115.09 points, or 1.66 percent, to 7,030.20.

The FANG group, comprising four closely-watched momentum stocks – Facebook Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Netflix Inc and Google parent company Alphabet Inc – were up between 1.2 percent and 2.4 percent.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before Congress this week regarding security issues related to the misuse of user data. In remarks released by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday, he apologized for not taking enough measures to protect Facebook users’ information. AveXis Inc rose 82.0 percent after Swiss drugmaker Novartis offered to buy the gene therapy company for $8.7 billion.

Merck & Co Inc shares rose 6.1 percent after the drugmaker’s blockbuster cancer drug, Keytruda, met the main study goal of helping previously untreated lung cancer patients live longer.

Shares of Leucadia National Corp jumped 12.7 percent after the company said it would sell most of its non-financial assets to focus on investment banking and advisory services.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.10-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.12-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

(Additional reporting by Sweta Singh and Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Nick Zieminski)