Equities finished the session on Wall Street with solid gains on Thursday after an unconfirmed report that Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin is suggesting to United States officials to roll back import tariffs for merchandise from China in order to make progress in bilateral trade negotiations. However, investors sold the news and major indexes pulled back somewhat, while Mnuchin failed to comment on the matter and media outlets learned from other insiders there is no intention to make such a move before the next formal round of talks at the end of the month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.67% to 24,370.1 points, led by DowDuPont's 2.96% gain. The session high, 24,474.46 points, was unseen since December 13, just like with the other two benchmarks. The Nasdaq 100 jumped 0.75% and the S&P 500 closed 0.76% in the green, with Fastenal at the top of the pile, surging 5.95%.
The euro was marginally lower at $1.13908 at 3:59 pm ET. The pound surged 0.83% to $1.2989. Gold was 0.13% below the flat line, selling for $1,291.49 per ounce. Still, oil reversed losses on tariffs speculation as the end of the trade war between the US and China would underpin demand growth.
