By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks advanced and the dollar rebounded on Tuesday as investors weighed progress in ongoing U.S. tariff talks and lowered economic expectations ahead of Friday’s crucial U.S. employment report.
All three major U.S. stock indexes ended the session with gains, with chips putting the tech-heavy Nasdaq out front following White House assurances that U.S. President Donald Trump will likely meet Chinese President Xi Jinping this week to address trade disputes between the world’s two largest economies.
Gold backed down from a nearly four-week high as the greenback strengthened.
“It’s hard to know what’s really driving things today,” said Chuck Carlson, CEO of Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.
“There seems to be a little bit more comfort that the economy is not going into recession, and there might be a bit of front-running here in the sense we have a jobs report that’s going to be coming out and investors want to get on the right side of that before it’s released.”
While the Trump administration pressed U.S. trading partners to provide their best offers by Wednesday, the protracted negotiations and moving deadlines have prompted economists to dial back economic expectations due to fallout from Trump’s trade war.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said the global economy is on course for a more drastic slowdown than it had expected only a few months ago. It cited Trump’s trade war, and warned of even weaker growth as protectionism increases, fueling inflation and disrupting supply chains.
The United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) downgraded its global employment forecast, citing worsened economic conditions from trade tensions.
“Maybe that’s helping U.S. markets,” Carlson added, noting that the weaker global economic growth projections could be encouraging investors to move money back into U.S.
The U.S. Labor Department reported that the number of unfilled U.S. jobs unexpectedly rose in April, while new orders for factory-made goods posted a steeper drop than analysts had anticipated.
Investors are now focused on the May employment report due on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters expect the U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs last month, with the unemployment rate standing pat at 4.2%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 214.16 points, or 0.51%, to 42,519.64, the S&P 500 rose 34.43 points, or 0.58%, to 5,970.37 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 156.34 points, or 0.81%, to 19,398.96.