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* China willing to reach agreement with U.S. - Xinhua
* Apple rises as brokerage sees higher iPhone demand
* Indexes up: Dow 0.6%, S&P 500 0.6%, Nasdaq 0.6%
(Updates to close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Thursday on
hopes that top-level U.S.-China trade talks would yield at least
a partial deal, while a jump in Apple's shares also boosted the
market.
Top U.S. and Chinese negotiators met on Thursday for the
first time since late July to try to find a way out of a
15-month trade war. After the bell, the S&P e-minis EScv1 jumped and were last
up about 1%, as U.S. President Donald Trump said the talks with
China went "very well today." He had tweeted earlier that he would meet with China's top
negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He at the White House on Friday.
Chinese officials had indicated more willingness to
negotiate, according to a Chinese state news agency Xinhua
report, while a senior U.S. Chamber of Commerce official said
U.S. and Chinese negotiators were working toward an "early
harvest" of confidence-building agreements, including one to
avoid currency manipulation. Cyclical groups including energy, financials, industrials
and materials were the day's best-performing sectors, while the
Dow Jones transportation average .DJT jumped 1.3%.
"There's still some hope that something happens here," said
Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management
in Birmingham, Alabama.
"But there seems to be an acceptance that this thing may not
be finished."
Apple Inc AAPL.O jumped 1.3% after Longbow Research
upgraded the company's stock to "buy", citing higher iPhone 11
demand.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 150.66 points,
or 0.57%, to 26,496.67, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 18.73 points,
or 0.64%, to 2,938.13 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
47.04 points, or 0.6%, to 7,950.78.
Stocks have been volatile in recent weeks because of weak
economic indicators showing a contraction in U.S. manufacturing
and a bleak reading on business activity, bolstering bets of
another interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve to combat a
slowdown.
Data on Thursday showed U.S. consumer prices were unchanged
in September, while underlying inflation retreated. Among other stocks, Delta Air Lines Inc DAL.N fell 1.5%
after the carrier forecast disappointing current-quarter profit.
Focus will shift even further to earnings next week when the
reporting period begins in earnest. Analysts are forecasting a
3.1% decline in earnings for the third quarter from a year ago,
based on IBES data from Refinitiv, and that could mark a recent
low point in year-over-year quarterly changes.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.71-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.27-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted six new 52-week highs and four new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 15 new highs and 128 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.16 billion shares, compared
to the roughly 7 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.