Wall Street’s trade war fears are easing — for now.
The Dow was on track to climb more than 300 points, or 1.3%, Monday after its worst week in two years.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that the United States and China started quietly negotiating to expand US companies’ access to Chinese markets. The Journal reported that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was weighing a trip to Beijing to pursue the negotiations.
“We’re having very productive conversations with them,” Mnuchin said Sunday on Fox News. “I’m cautiously hopeful we reach an agreement.”
Investors were encouraged by talks between the world’s two largest economies. Stocks got hammered last week after President Trump announced plans to impose new tariffs on about $50 billion of Chinese goods in retaliation for alleged Chinese intellectual property theft.
China also hit back on Trump’s earlier aluminum and steel tariffs by imposing their own tariffs on about $3 billion worth of imports of US goods, including pork, fruit and wine.
The Dow plummeted more than 1,100 points on Thursday and Friday, slipping into a correction — a decline of 10% from all-time highs in January. The Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq suffered their biggest weekly losses since January 2016.
The bond market also got a boost from the report.
The 10-year US Treasury note yield fell sharply to 2.81% last week as investors sought safe haven from volatile stocks. Yields move opposite to prices. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 2.84% Monday.
—CNNMoney’s Matt Egan contributed to this story.
