US markets close higher amid rising optimism of US-China trade deal

12 Apr 2025 Evaluate

The US markets showed substantial recovery from Thursday’s pullback to close higher on Friday. Investors took a sigh of bliss as the rising concerns about trade tensions between US and China partly offset by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt comments indicating President Trump is optimistic about reaching a trade deal with China. Besides, the European Union has announced that it is suspending its planned countermeasures to Trump's tariffs for 90 days which uplifted the trading sentiments. Meanwhile, the positive global cues overshadowed the preliminary data released by the University of Michigan showed a continued slump by U.S. consumer sentiment in the month of April. The University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index tumbled to 50.8 in April after plunging to 57.0 in March, while the street had expected the consumer sentiment index to fall to 54.5.

On sectoral front, gold stocks moved sharply higher along with the price of the precious metal, driving the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index up by 6.1 percent to its highest closing level in over twelve years. A surge by the price of crude oil also contributed to substantial strength among oil service stocks, as reflected by the 4.7 percent spike by the Philadelphia Oil Service Index.

Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 619.05 points or 1.56 percent to 40,212.71, Nasdaq shot up 337.14 points or 2.06 percent to 16,724.46 and S&P 500 surged 95.31 points or 1.81 percent to 5,363.36.


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