Wall Street closes higher, led by tech stocks

​​​​​​​ISTANBUL

US stocks closed higher Thursday as investors continued to search for indications of improvement in global trade.

The S&P 500 jumped 2.03%, or 108.91 points, to close at 5,484.77.

The Nasdaq rose 2.74% to finish at 17,166.04 points and the Dow climbed 1.23% to 40,093.40 points.

The gain in stocks was led by tech stocks. Shares of Apple, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft and Alphabet, also known as the Magnificent Seven, each closed higher.

The climb was also affected by optimism about the prospect of a trade deal between the world's two biggest economies.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a prospective deal with China to recalibrate the trade relationship will be "fair" as the world's top two economies continue to be locked in a simmering trade war.

"We are going to have a fair deal with China. It's going to be fair," Trump said at the White House, claiming the relationship with China "got out of control" under his predecessors.

China on Thursday denied it was holding negotiations with the US on tariffs, its state media reported, one day after Trump said talks were underway for a potential trade deal

"As far as I know, China and the US have not consulted or negotiated on the issue of tariffs, let alone reached an agreement," Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, said talks with South Korea "may be moving faster" than expected.

"We had a very successful bilateral meeting with Republic of South Korea today. We may be moving faster than I thought, and we will be talking technical terms as early as next week, as we reach an agreement on understanding as soon as next week,” he said.

On the macroeconomic data side, existing home sales in the US declined 5.9% month-on-month in March to 4.02 million, below estimates of 4.14 million units.

New orders for manufactured durable goods rose $26.6 billion, or 9.2%, to $315.7 billion

Initial jobless claims in the US were 222,000 for the week ending April 19, up 6,000 from the previous week's revised figure

The VIX Index, also known as the “fear index," dropped 6.96% to 26.47.