Stocks looked set to rally on Monday, as signs of easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China soothed investors, helping the market to look past some of its fears about bad loans hitting the banking industry.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 155 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.4%, and contracts tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 added 0.5%.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that the U.S. is “going to do fine with China,” signaling that trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies are cooling ahead of a meeting between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Malaysia this week. Trump on Sunday listed rare earths, fentanyl, and soybeans as the main issues he’d like to see resolved.
The market is hopeful that Beijing and Washington will be able to broker some sort of trade deal before Nov. 1, the date when U.S. tariffs are expected to snap higher. Equities opened in the red on Friday due to investors’ concerns about the health of regional banks, but the major indexes changed direction thanks to solid earnings and positive trade headlines.
Consumer inflation data due out on Friday could also move the market this week. It will likely be one of the last data points the Federal Reserve gets before its Oct. 29 policy meeting, with most job-market figures still suspended due to the ongoing government shutdown, which just entered its third full week.
Earnings will also be key, with soft drinks maker Coca-Cola, video streamer Netflix, and electric car manufacturer Tesla among the 80 S&P 500 companies set to report over the next five days.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note ticked up 2 basis points to 4.02% on Monday. The U.S. dollar climbed 0.1% against a weighted basket of its peers, and gold futures rose 1.4% to $4,274 an ounce.
