Stocks rallied worldwide on Monday after President Trump relaxed some of his tariffs and as stress from within the US bond market seemed to ease.
- The S&P 500 rose 42.61 points, or 0.8%, to 5,405.97.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 312.08 points, or 0.8%, to 40,524.79.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 107.03 points, or 0.6%, to 16,831.48.
Apple and other technology stocks helped lift the market after Trump
temporarily exempted smartphones and other electronics from some of his stiff tariffs, the
AP reports. Perhaps more importantly for Wall Street, the bond market showed signals of increasing calm as Treasury yields eased.
The exemption for electronics should help US importers, which would not have to choose between passing on the higher costs to their customers or taking a hit to their own profits. Apple climbed 2.2%, and Dell Technologies rose 4%. Automakers also rallied after Trump suggested he may announce pauses on tariffs next for the auto industry. General Motors rose 3.5%, and Ford Motor rallied 4.1%. But such relief may ultimately prove fleeting. Trump's tariff rollout has been full of fits and starts, and officials in his administration said this most recent exemption on electronics is only temporary. That could keep uncertainty high for companies, which are trying to make long-term plans when conditions seem to change by the day.
Such uncertainty sent the US stock market last week to chaotic and historic swings, as investors struggled to catch up with Trump's moves on tariffs. China's commerce ministry nevertheless welcomed the pause on elecronics tariffs in a Sunday statement as a small step even as it called for the US to completely cancel the rest of its tariffs. China's leader Xi Jinping on Monday said no one wins in a trade war as he kicked off a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia, hoping to present China as a force for stability in contrast with Trump's frenetic moves on tariffs.
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Elsewhere on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs rose 1.9% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. It joined other big banks in doing so, such as JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed 2.4% in France, 2.9% in Germany, 1.2% in Japan, and 1% in South Korea. In China, stock indexes rose 2.4% in Hong Kong and 0.8% in Shanghai after the government reported that China's exports surged 12.4% in March from a year earlier in a last-minute flurry of activity as companies rushed to beat increases in US tariffs.
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