US: Stocks rebound as markets shrug off economic worries

 [NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks rallied on Monday as investors jumped on a market pullback, shrugging off economic worries and focusing on the rising odds of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.

After Friday’s equity market rout following a weak jobs report, the so-called “buy-the-dip” trading strategy was back in force on Monday.

“Traders and investors have made a lot of money by deciding that tariffs won’t matter, and they’re not going to change that now,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.

“I think the bias that most of them have now is ‘Let’s not think about tariffs as being a problem until they actually prove that they are.’”

Major indices spent the entire day in positive territory, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending up 1.3 per cent at 44,173.64.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 1.5 per cent to 6,329.94, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.0 per cent to 21,053.58.

Monday’s trading session effectively reversed Friday’s losses, when US equities sold off following July jobs data that missed analyst expectations.

Government officials also revised employment data from the prior two months, slashing nearly 260,000 jobs from the slate of positions added.

Among individual companies, Tesla rose 2.2 per cent after announcing an “interim” compensation award worth about US$29 billion for Elon Musk as the company works to retain the controversial CEO at a moment of fierce tech industry competition for top engineering talent. AFP