(Reuters) - Wall Street indexes rose on Monday, helped by gains in technology stocks after President Donald Trump softened his stance on Chinese technology company ZTE Corp, signaling easing U.S.-China trade tensions.
Trump on Sunday pledged to help ZTE (000063.SZ) “get back into business, fast” nearly a month after the U.S. Commerce Department banned American companies from selling to the firm for violating an agreement.
Trump’s comments came ahead of trade talks between Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. officials this week to resolve escalating trade disputes and drove big gains in the shares of U.S. suppliers to ZTE.
Optical components maker Acacia Communications (ACIA.O) jumped 16.1 percent, while Oclaro (OCLR.O) and Lumentum Holdings (LITE.O) rose 5.8 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.
“Some of the headlines point to signs that Trump might be watering down his tough talks on trade,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
Also helping the mood was news that China had resumed its review of chipmaker Qualcomm’s (QCOM.O) proposed $44 billion takeover of NXP Semiconductors (NXPI.O). NXP surged 10.3 percent and Qualcomm 3.3 percent.
The Philadelphia semiconductor index .SOX was up 1.9 percent.
At 9:55 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was up 120.76 points, or 0.49 percent, at 24,951.93, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 12.45 points, or 0.46 percent, at 2,740.17 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 43.40 points, or 0.59 percent, at 7,446.28.
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