Stocks climb as investors hope for trade progress

NEW YORK» Stocks climbed again Friday as President Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, prepared to meet and discuss trade, a meeting investors hope will start to resolve the nations’ trade dispute.

The U.S. market jumped this week after falling to a six-month low the week before. The rally helped the market finish with a modest gain in November, but the S&P 500 is still 5.8 percent away from the all-time high it set in late September. Among other issues, that drop reflects investors’ pessimism that the U.S. and China will resolve their differences without causing damage to the global economy. The two sides have been sparring for months over issues including China’s technology policy.

“The outlook for the global economy in 2019 does depend on some peace in the trade dispute between the U.S. and China,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds. He said global stocks will probably jump if the two leaders announce the framework of a deal and fall if they don’t. In any case, he thinks the two sides will reach an agreement by early 2019.

“Nobody’s got much to gain from fighting a trade war, but we both are threatened with recession,” Kelly said.

Technology and health care companies made the largest gains Friday, but energy companies slipped as U.S. crude oil fell again, briefly trading under $50 a barrel. The price of crude oil dropped 22 percent in November, its worst month in a decade, hurt by concerns that supplies are too ample as global economic growth slows.

Hotel operator Marriott tumbled after it announced a data breach that could affect 500 million guests.

The S&P 500 index gained 22.41 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,760.17. The Dow Jones in- dustrial average rose 199.62 points, or 0.8 percent, to 25,538.46. The Nasdaq composite jumped 57.45 points, or 0.8 percent, to 7,330.54. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks added 7.88 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,533.27.

The U.S. has announced tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports this year, with the tax rate on many products set to rise Jan. 1, while China put new taxes on $110 billion in U.S. goods. Investors are concerned that the lingering dispute will keep businesses from spending money. That might not change even if the nations announce a cease-fire on new tariffs or the outlines of a deal this weekend.

“There’s still a long way to resolve all of the issues,” said Kate Warne, an investment strategist with Edward Jones. “I suspect we’ll continue to see more of the back and forth that we’ve seen this week, prompting further market volatility as well as greater uncertainty.”

Among technology companies, Intel gained 3.4 percent to $49.31 and Nvidia climbed 3.9 percent to $163.43. Microsoft rose 0.6 percent to $110.89. Apple lost 0.5 percent to $178.58, which meant Microsoft surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. Microsoft’s current market value is $851.2 billion, compared with $847.4 billion for Apple. Amazon isn’t far behind, at $826.4 billion.

Microsoft was the world’s most valuable publicly traded company during the dotcom boom, but it hadn’t held the title since 2000. Apple became No. 1 earlier this decade, when it surpassed Exxon Mobil.

Health care companies climbed too. Biotech drugmaker AbbVie rose 4.8 percent to $94.27 after it said Pfizer agreed to wait until November 2023 before it starts selling a generic version of AbbVie’s inflammatory disease drug Humira in the U.S.