US open: Strong start on the Street as investors shake off concerns over trade war

US stocks opened higher on Monday with traders seemingly brushing off ongoing global trade tensions.

As of 1510 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.76% to 24,821.98, while the S&P 500 had added 0.40% to 2,745.68 and the Nasdaq had climbed 0.23% to 7,571.34.

Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at SpreadEx, said, "Climbing 200 points, the Dow crossed 24800 for the first time in a week, despite little improvement in the things – namely Trump slapping tariffs on metals imports from the EU, Mexico and Canada, alongside stalled talks with China – that helped drive it lower in the first place."

After the latest round of trade negotiations between the US delegation, led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and China over the weekend, Beijing said "positive and concrete progress" had been made, saying there was "good communication" between both sides on agriculture and energy, while relevant details were yet to be confirmed by both sides, Xinhua reported.

However, China also threatened to withdraw from its previously agreed commitments with Washington to cut its bilateral trade deficit on goods with the US if President Donald Trump moves ahead with tariffs on $50bn-worth of Chinese products.

Canada and the European Union also indicated they might responde to Washington's tariffs on their exports of aluminium and steel with their own countermeasures.

Commenting on the market backdrop, Craig Erlam at Oanda said: "The angry responses from various politicians in response to Donald Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminium and the counter measures that will likely follow doesn't fill anyone will optimism.

"This may well be a tactic to force countries back to the negotiating table that could in the longer run result in smaller deficits for the US and what it deems to be fairer trade but this is far from guaranteed and Trump is clearly taking a big risk, something he isn't exactly averse to," Erlam added.

On the economic front, new orders for US-made goods turned in their biggest drop in three months in April on the back of a decline in demand for aircraft.

Factory goods orders fell 0.8% to $494.4bn in April from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said on Monday.

That was a steeper decline than the 0.5% predicted by economists, while data for the previous month was revised up to a 1.7% increase.

The report also showed that durable goods orders declined 1.6%.

Nevertheless, following the report Barclays Research's tracking estimate for second quarter US GDP growth was unchanged at an annualised pace of 3.4%.

Meanwhile, in company news, PC-maker Dell lost 1.73% after posting a 19% surge in first quarter sales to $21.36bn, easily topping forecasts for a rise to $19.37bn.

WalMart picked up 1.45% on news that private equity outfit Advent International was set to buy 80% of its Brazilian arm for an undisclosed sum.

Shares in Southwest Airlines took off 1.55% despite the budget airline disclosing that revenues per available seat mile had fallen 3% from their year-ago level.