Wall St set to resume record run on trade deal optimism

Wall Street’s main indexes were set to hit record highs on Thursday, boosted by signs of progress in US-China trade relations and a fresh batch of largely upbeat earnings reports.

The benchmark S&P 500 index is eyeing its fifth straight week of increases, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is set to log six weeks of gains.

China said on Thursday that it had agreed with the United States to remove tariffs in phases, while the state-owned Xinhua News Agency said Beijing was also considering removing restrictions on poultry imports.

“This is fuelling optimism that a trade deal will be solidified at some point,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at New Vines Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“It removes a veil of uncertainty and gives the market a green light for a risk-on path.”

Trade-sensitive industrials 3M Co and Caterpillar Inc rose over 1% in premarket trading. Chipmakers with a sizeable exposure to China, including Intel, Micron Technology and Nvidia, were up between 1% and 1.7%.

Also supporting tech stocks was a 5.6% gain in Qualcomm Inc shares after the chipmaker forecast current-quarter profit above analysts’ estimates.

Nearly three-quarters of the 383 S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far have beaten profit expectations, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

At 8:46 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 152 points, or 0.55%. S&P 500 e-minis were up 11.5 points, or 0.37% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 36 points, or 0.44%.

Ralph Lauren Corp jumped 9.6% after it topped second-quarter profit expectations, driven by tighter control on expenses and strong demand for its Polo shirts and tweed jackets in China and Europe.

Expedia Group dropped 14% as the online travel booking company missed quarterly profit estimates.

Roku plunged 15% after posting a wider net loss in the third quarter, as it spent more to attract subscribers to its video streaming platform.

Twitter fell 1.6% after Evercore ISI downgraded the stock to “underperform” from “in-line”.