Two of the three major stock indices won solid gains, although analysts described caution ahead of next week’s heavy schedule of corporate earnings and economic data.
The “soft data has been showing very negative signs for the economy, but it hasn’t really gone through to the hard data,” said Victoria Fernandez of Crossmark Global Investments.
Reports next week on the labour market and other key indicators will show if “we are truly weakening or not,” Fernandez said.
The Dow Jones eked out a 0.1 percent gain at 40,113.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.7 percent to 5,525, while the Nasdaq jumped 1.3 percent to 17,382.
After tumbling on Monday following Trump’s harsh criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, markets have rebounded since Trump said on Tuesday he has no intention of firing the Fed boss.
The administration has also adopted a more conciliatory tone on trade talks with China, although the state of talks between Washington and Beijing remains murky.
Beijing has said there are no active negotiations with the United States, while Trump claimed to have spoken with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Among individual companies, Google parent Alphabet rose 1.5 percent after reporting a profit of US$34.5 billion in the recently ended quarter, powered by its cloud computing and artificial intelligence operations.
But Intel dropped 6.7 percent due to disappointment over the company’s second-quarter outlook. (AFP)
