Stocks recover for third day on the back of Wall Street’s worst month in 7 years

Traders
and financial professionals work ahead of the closing bell on the
floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), June 15, 2018 in New
York City.
Drew
Angerer/Getty

• President Donald Trump said he would meet with China’s
  Xi Jinping this month, easing trade concerns.
• After a string of sharp sell-offs, October was the
  worst month on Wall Street in seven years.
• 
  Follow the US indexes in real
  time here.
  

Stocks jumped for a third session
Thursday as the prospect of cooling trade tensions allowed Wall
Street to begin recovering from its worst
month 

in
seven years

.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average

rose 1.05%, or more than 250 points, after
President Donald Trump

said

he had a “very good” talk with Chinese leader
Xi Jinping and that the two plan to meet at a multilateral summit
this month.


The Nasdaq Composite

rallied 1.75%, and


the S&P 500

was up
1.05%.

“Given the fragility of the US
market, any headlines or factors that could ease investors’
anxiety over either the US economy or China could see buying back
of oversold US cyclical names,” said Masanari Takada, an analyst
at Nomura.

Earnings season continued,
with


Spotify

posting
a

jump in subscribers

in the third quarter but
disappointing on guidance.


Royal Dutch Shell

also
beat, reporting its

highest profit in four
years

.
Apple, 

Starbucks,


Shake Shack
and


Kraft Heinz

are
scheduled to report after the bell. 

Trade optimism was met with
gloomy economic data earlier Thursday. Manufacturing activity in
the US slowed to a six-month low in October, according to the
Institute for Supply Management, in part thanks to rising
protectionism.

“In one line: Tariffs, tariffs,
tariffs,” 
Ian
Sheperdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in
an email.
“For the
consumer, the tariffs are for the most part still an abstract
idea, but for manufacturers they are real, and a big
problem.”

Possibly helping the mood, signs
of a
tightening job market
are expected to show up in a monthly

Labor Department
report

out Friday. US
companies added the most jobs in eight months in October, the ADP
Research Institute

said this
week

.

Meanwhile, investors moved toward
US government bonds, with yields on the 10-year Treasury note
falling 1.5 basis points to 3.144%. The


dollar

retreated from
its highest point in more than a year, shedding 0.9% to 96.3
against a basket of currencies.

“The move reflects the reversal
of month-end rebalancing alongside another move by the Chinese to
inject economic stimulus,” said Mark McCormick, head of North
American strategy at TD Securities.