A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on April 9, 2025 in New York.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Stocks popped Thursday thanks to strong gains in megacap tech names, as investors continued to look for signs of progress on the global trade front.
The S&P 500 ended up 2.03% at 5,484.77, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 2.74% to finish at 17,166.04. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged the other two indexes, weighed down by a 6.6% drop in IBM, but still added 486.83 points, or 1.23%, at 40,093.40. This marked the blue-chip index’s first close above the 40,000 threshold since April 15.
Shares of Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Tesla and Microsoft all closed higher, propelling the major averages to their third day of gains in a row. Tech has been rocked recently as the White House’s increasingly confrontational trade stance, particularly against China, dents sentiment on the sector.
China said overnight that there were no trade talks taking place with the U.S. China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesperson He Yadong said “all sayings” regarding progress on bilateral talks should be dismissed. He also called for the cancellation of “unilateral” tariffs.
Those remarks came after President Donald Trump said he is willing to take a less confrontational approach toward trade talks with Beijing. Further, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that the U.S. has the “opportunity for a big deal” on trade. Chinese imports are subject to a U.S. tariff of 145%.
With this lack of trade negotiation progress with China in mind, Ross Mayfield, investment analyst at Baird, was cautious about Thursday’s rally upward.
“I don’t trust the move,” he told CNBC in an interview. “China overnight was pretty explicit that there were no negotiations ongoing. Perhaps the market is still feeling some confidence that at least the administration is talking about wanting a deal, as opposed to digging in and raising tariffs to insane rates. There’s potentially some leftover optimism from yesterday.”
Still, investors received some good news on Thursday afternoon when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration may reach “an agreement on understanding” on trade with South Korea “as soon as next week.”
The S&P 500 has slipped 3.3% since April 2, the day Trump announced his new policy on U.S. imports. Since then, the Dow has declined 5.1%, while the Nasdaq has lost 2.5%.
The major averages are currently pacing to end the week in positive territory, which would mark the second positive week in three for all three indexes.
