The US markets ended marginally higher on Tuesday as comments from President Donald Trump’s top economic advisor sparked some hope the US and China will strike a compromise on trade. National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said the White House was having a lot of communication with the Chinese government at all levels ahead of a meeting between Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Further, he stated that Trump thinks there is a good possibility the two countries can reach an agreement. Besides, some support also came in with Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida stating that the central bank was much closer to a neutral rate than it was in December 2015, the first time the Fed hiked since the financial crisis. Clarida’s remarks come ahead of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on Wednesday at the Economic Club of New York.
On the economic front, reflecting a pullback in expectations, the Conference Board released a report showing a bigger than expected decrease in US consumer confidence in the month of November. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dropped to 135.7 in November after rising to 137.9 in October. Street had expected the index to dip to 136.5. The bigger than expected decrease by the consumer confidence index came after it reached its highest level since September of 2000 in the previous month. The pullback by the headline index came as the expectations index slid to 111.0 in November from 115.1 in October, indicating a decline in consumer optimism about the short-term future.
Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 108.49 or 0.44 percent points to 24748.73, S&P 500 added 8.72 points or 0.33 percent to 2682.17 and Nasdaq was up 0.85 points or 0.01 percent to 7082.70.
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