Stocks surged on Thursday after the U.S. and China agreed to meet next month in Washington to discuss trade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 436 points, or 1.7 percent. The S&P 500 climbed 1.4 percent to around 2,980, led by a 2.5 percent gain in the financials sector, and traded around 1.6 percent from its record high. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.7 percent.
China’s Commerce Ministry issued a statement Thursday morning saying that Liu He, Beijing’s top negotiator on trade, had spoken with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The two sides agreed to hold another round of trade negotiations in Washington, D.C., towards the beginning of next month, and consultations will be made in mid-September in preparation for the meeting, the statement said.
“Both sides agreed they should work together and take practical actions to create favorable conditions for the negotiations,” according to a CNBC translation of the statement.
The announcement came after the world’s two largest economies imposed new tariffs on each other’s goods at the start of the month, marking yet another escalation in the protracted trade war. Previously, both sides had indicated they would meet in September.
“Even though expectations for a robust trade deal are low, with global growth continuing to deteriorate as trade tensions mount, investors are relieved just to see talks are back on,” said Alec Young, managing director of global markets research at FTSE Russell. “There’s so much at stake that even incremental steps in the right direction are welcomed.”
On the data front, private payrolls in the U.S. increased by 195,000, according to ADP and Moody’s Analytics. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected payrolls to grow by 140,000. The report from ADP and Moody’s Analytics is seen by investors as a preview to the U.S. government’s monthly nonfarm payrolls report, which is scheduled for release Friday morning.