Wall Street higher after latest tariff moves

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday led by the technology and consumer sectors, as investors judged the latest exchange of blows in a trade war with China less damaging than first feared.

President Donald Trump's 10 percent duties on some $200 billion worth of Chinese goods spared a range of consumer technology products including Apple and Fitbit smartwatches, lending strength to tech shares, considered the most exposed to the ever-escalating trade war.

The tariff rate will also rise to 25 percent only by the end of 2018, allowing U.S. companies some time to adjusted their supply chains to alternate countries.

 

China also said it would levy tariffs on about $60 billion worth of U.S. goods in retaliation, as previously planned, but it reduced the volume of tariffs it will collect on the products.

The tech sector rose 0.76 percent, lifted by Apple, which climbed 1.1 percent.

Apple's iPhone was also left out of the list of products hit by the latest round of tariffs.

The consumer discretionary sector gained 0.64 percent, boosted by a 1.8 percent gain in Amazon.com Inc.

All stocks in the FAANG group of leading tech stocks were higher. Netflix, Google parent Alphabet, and Facebook each rose between 0.35 percent and 2.5 percent.

"Rather than going ahead with the full 25 percent, the administration will wait till end of the year - this minimizes the overall impact," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher. The energy sector led the gains with a 1.22 percent advance after oil prices climbed on signs that the OPEC would not be prepared to raise output. [O/R]

At 10:00 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 69.24 points, or 0.27 percent, at 26,131.36, the S&P 500 was up 9.28 points, or 0.32 percent, at 2,898.08 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 49.52 points, or 0.63 percent, at 7,945.32.

Viking Therapeutics shares more than doubled in value after its fatty liver treatment showed promising results in a mid-stage trial.

Advanced Micro Devices rose 0.4 percent, while peer Nvidia gained 1.0 percent after Mizuho raised its share price targets for both. A third chipmaker, Micron, rose 2.0 percent.

Oracle fell 1.1 percent after the business software maker failed to hit revenue estimates in its struggle to make inroads in the cloud computing market.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.31-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.69-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 19 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 23 new highs and 36 new lows.

(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Sai Sachin Ravikumar)