Stocks climb with softer landing on tariffs
NEW YORK — After hours of indecisive trading, stocks finished with modest gains Thursday after President Donald Trump formally ordered tariffs on steel and aluminum imports with terms that were less harsh than investors had feared.
Stocks rallied after news that Canada and Mexico will be exempted indefinitely from the tariffs and that other countries will be invited to negotiate for exemptions as well.
Congressional Republicans and business leaders oppose the tariffs and have pushed for the administration to take a more measured approach that would invite less backlash from other countries.
“The president's tone was far more pragmatic,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. “This certainly is not the strict tariff proposal that the president had suggested in the past couple of weeks.”
Health care companies rose after pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts accepted a $52 billion offer from health insurer Cigna.
Technology companies also moved higher, but energy companies slipped along with oil prices. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.03, or 1.7 percent, to $60.12 a barrel in New York.
Friday could prove to be another dramatic day on Wall Street as investors review the government's February jobs report. Stocks tumbled after the January report showed unexpectedly strong growth in wages, which set off worries about inflation.
Investors expect February's jobs report will show another month of strong hiring. According to FactSet, they expect to see that hourly wages grew 2.8 percent.
That's similar to last month's report, which caught investors by surprise. Wall Street feared the stronger wage gains mean inflation is picking up and that interest rates will start to rise more rapidly, slowing the economy.
That helped touch off a nine-day, 10 percent plunge for the S&P 500, which has yet to fully recover.
Friday is the ninth anniversary of the current bull market. March 9, 2009, was the lowest point for the S&P 500 after the 2008-09 financial crisis that touched off the Great Recession. The index has roughly quadrupled since then, and it's about five months away from becoming the longest-lived bull market since World War II.
Grocery chain Kroger posted a bigger fourthquarter profit and said its digital sales almost doubled in the past year, but its profit forecast for the current year disappointed investors. Kroger expects to earn between $1.95 and $2.15 a share for the year, while FactSet says analysts expected a profit of $2.15 per share on average. The stock fell $3.25, or 12.4 percent, to $22.98.