Wall Street's three major indexes rallied sharply Monday with the S&P 500 hitting its highest levels since early March as a U.S.-China agreement to temporarily slash tariffs brought some hopes for the easing of a global trade war, which U.S. President Donald Trump ignited in early April.
The U.S. and China announced on Monday that they would slash steep tariffs on each other for 90 days. The U.S. said it will cut tariffs imposed on Chinese imports to 30% from 145% while China said it would cut duties on U.S. imports to 10% from 125%.
Investors showed some relief by favoring riskier assets and turning away from more defensive bets, but they were still left waiting for clarity on where tariffs would ultimately settle.
"It's a relief rally because there was a lot of anxiety and angst about tariffs between the U.S. and China," said John Praveen, managing director at Paleo Leon in Princeton, New Jersey, adding that the world's two biggest economies appeared to be working to avoid the worst-case tariff scenarios.
"They are going to scale it down to much more reasonable levels so the fall-out from tariffs will probably be more manageable and limited," said Praveen.
Chris Brigati, chief investment officer at SWBC, an investment company in San Antonio, Texas, said "the market perceives any progress as positive."
"The market is celebrating it for the moment, but in the long run, there could be complications, and we could see some negative implications," Brigati said.
U.S. stocks weathered steep losses and unusually high volatility after Trump announced tariffs on multiple U.S. trade partners on April 2.
Since then, an April 9 announcement of a 90-day pause for countries besides China, upbeat earnings reports and last week's U.S.-UK limited trade agreement have helped both the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq regain lost ground.
On Monday, both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq eyed their biggest single-day jumps since April 9 and the S&P broke above its 200-day moving average for the first time since late March.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 184.70 points, or 3.26%, to end at 5,844.61 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 780.06 points, or 4.35%, to 18,708.61. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,166.43 points, or 2.83%, to 42,415.81.
Wall Street's "fear gauge," the CBOE Volatility Index , which had hit a peak of 60 in April due to tariff fears, traded below 20 on Monday for the first time since late March. In commodities, safe-haven gold was falling sharply.
Of the 11 S&P sub-sectors, defensive utilities was the laggard during the session while the strongest sectors were heavyweight consumer discretionary and technology.
In technology, Apple rallied after a report that it was considering raising the prices of its fall iPhone lineup.
The earnings season is winding down, with more than 90% of the S&P 500 companies having reported so far. Numbers from retail giant Walmart are due later this week.
Shares in NRG Energy soared after the utility said it would acquire power generation assets from energy infrastructure investment firm LS Power in a deal valued at $12 billion.
Several Federal Reserve officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, are slated to make public remarks over the week.
Traders expect the Fed to deliver two 25-basis-point rate reductions by the end of 2025, with the first cut now expected in September, according to data compiled by LSEG.