By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Major stock indexes rose on Wednesday as Nvidia climbed to a $4-trillion valuation, while the dollar was little changed and the euro edged lower, as U.S. President Donald Trump issued final tariff notices to seven minor trading partners.
At the same time, the Trump administration edged closer to a deal with its biggest trading partner, the European Union.
On Tuesday, Trump broadened his trade war, announcing he would impose a 50% tariff on imported copper. The move sent U.S. copper prices soaring and U.S. stock prices lower. He also said he would soon introduce levies of up to 200% for pharmaceuticals.
U.S. copper futures on Wednesday widened their premium to the London benchmark.
“Certainly President Trump and the administration have shown a willingness to change course, and what’s on the table today doesn’t necessarily mean it will be on the table tomorrow,” said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors in Westport, Connecticut.
“Investors I think are ignoring that noise, and the reason they’re ignoring that noise is that the greatest fear of the tariffs was they were going to create a significant amount of inflationary pressure and economic disorder, and it hasn’t happened on a broad basis,” he said.
Investors are awaiting further developments in Trump’s trade war in the coming days, after he told 14 nations on Monday they will face sharply higher tariffs from a new deadline of August 1.
Helping U.S. stocks, artificial intelligence leader Nvidia notched a market capitalization of $4 trillion, making it the first public company in the world to reach the milestone.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 139.86 points, or 0.31%, to 44,377.77, the S&P 500 added 25.30 points, or 0.41%, to 6,250.83 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 152.17 points, or 0.75%, to 20,570.63.
Investors have been concerned that higher tariffs could increase inflation and slow economic growth.
U.S. stocks stayed higher after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June 17-18 meeting showed only “a couple” of officials at the meeting said they felt interest rates could fall as soon as this month.
Most policymakers remained worried to some degree about the inflationary pressure they expect to come from Trump’s use of import taxes to reshape global trade.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 3.92 points, or 0.43%, to 923.23. The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended up 0.78%.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, eased 0.03% to 97.52, with the euro down 0.07% at $1.1716. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar dipped 0.18% to 146.28.
Japan, which depends on exports, stands out among major U.S. trading partners as being the farthest from reaching a trade deal with Washington.
U.S. Treasury yields dipped. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 7.5 basis points to 4.342%, from 4.417% late on Tuesday.
European government bonds were little changed, with the benchmark 10-year German yield at 2.637%.
U.S. crude rose 5 cents to settle at $68.38 a barrel.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; editing by Joe Bavier, Mark Heinrich and Rod Nickel)
