Stocks are jumping as traders see 'light at the end of the trade-war tunnel'

Reuters / Brendan McDermid

• Stocks jumped on Thursday following reports of a tentative truce in the US-China trade war.
• The two countries are crafting a deal to avert planned US tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, according to the South China Morning Post.
• "The truce cake seems to have been baked," one source told the newspaper.
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Stocks jumped on Thursday following reports of a tentative truce in the US-China trade war.

Washington and Beijing are crafting a deal to avert the next round of US tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, according to the South China Morning Post. "The truce cake seems to have been baked," one source told the newspaper.

The news lifted traders' hopes that President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping can reach an agreement to de-escalate the trade war when they meet on Saturday during the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

"The fact that the United States and China have agreed to a tentative tariff truce ahead of the G-20 meeting does suggest that there is still some light at the end of the trade war tunnel," said Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM.

The promise of a pact reassured traders after Trump discussed raising tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods from 25% to 35% in an interview on Wednesday. "My plan B with China is to take in billions and billions of dollars a month and we'll do less and less business with them."

"The sentiment in the markets is turning bullish as investors are hoping from some sort of meaningful development over the weekend," said Konstantinos Anthis, head of research at ADSS. "We'd rather be a bit more cautious ahead of the G-20 meeting as the odds for a material breakthrough are quite low."

Here's the market roundup as of 9.00 a.m. (5.00 a.m. ET):

• Asian stocks climbed with the Shanghai Composite up 0.7%, the SZSE Component up 1.3%, Japan's Nikkei up 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 1.5%.
• European equities rallied in morning trading with Germany's DAX up 0.6%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 and Britain's FTSE 100 up 0.2%.
• US markets are set to open higher. Futures underlying the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were up by about 0.4%, while Nasdaq futures rose 0.6%.
• Oil prices dropped with West Texas Intermediate crude down 0.5% at $59.10, and Brent crude down 0.6% at $65.30.
• Gold fell 0.7% to $1,406 as investors pulled cash out of the save haven in search of higher returns.
• Bitcoin slid 0.6% to about $12,340. The cryptocurrency remains volatile after surging by more than a third in the past week.