US stocks drifted higher on Thursday, helped by a rise in technology shares, but gains were limited as investors awaited a G20 meeting for clarity on progress in trade talks between the United States and China.
The South China Morning Post reported that the United States and China were laying out an agreement that would help avert the next round of tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports.
"The trade truce is what the market needs right now," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.
"The message is that they're not going to escalate further from here on and we're now in neutral territory. What investors are hoping for now is that the meeting diffuses some of the tension."
However, a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese President Xi Jinping planned to present President Donald Trump with a set of terms Washington should meet before Beijing is ready to settle their trade dispute tempered optimism.
The trade-sensitive industrials rose 0.31%, while tech stocks were up 0.50%.
Semiconductor companies, which have a sizable revenue exposure to China, traded higher, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index up 1.39%.
Boeing Co fell 3%, pressuring the blue-chip Dow Jones index, after Reuters reported that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration identified a new flaw in the planemaker's grounded 737 MAX jets.
At 9:45 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15.78 points, or 0.06%, at 26,552.60 and the S&P 500 was up 12.59 points, or 0.43%, at 2,926.37.
The Nasdaq Composite was up 44.75 points, or 0.57%, at 7,954.72.
The bellwether S&P 500 index has recouped most of its losses in May and is on pace to end June with a 6% gain, on hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates to counter slowing growth.
Data showed U.S. economic growth accelerated in the first quarter but the export and inventory boost to activity masked weakness in domestic demand, some of which appears to Read More – Source
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