Bulls In Charge On Wall Street Amid Yet Another Trump Flip-flop

Barry Adams
27 May, 2025
New York City

Wall Street indexes advanced in early trading as investors returned from a three-day weekend amid ongoing trade tensions ignited by the U.S. president. 

Donald Trump paused the threatened, but not imposed, 50% tariff on the European Union by about a week to July 9. 

Market sentiment remained positive despite twin worries of a sharp rise in import taxes and a deteriorating financial position after the passage of the latest tax-and-spend bill by the U.S. House. 

The S&P 500 index edged up 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.2%, as investors await a barrage of earnings later in the week. 

Nvidia, Dell Technologies, Salesforce.com, Marvell Technologies, HP, Macy's, Costco, Foot Locker, and Burlington Stores are among several companies scheduled to release their results. 

On the economic front, investors are awaiting the release of GDP growth data and a consumer confidence update later this week. 

New orders for manufactured durable goods in April, down following four consecutive monthly increases, decreased 6.3% to $19.9 billion from $296.3 billion in the previous month, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. 

This followed a 7.6% March increase; excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.2%, and excluding defense, new orders declined 7.5%.

New order flow decline was mainly driven by the start of the tariff and softer demand for goods following front-loading orders in the previous month. 

Transportation equipment orders plunged 17.1% to $98.8 billion, mainly on non-defense aircraft and parts orders declining by 51.5% to $18.1 billion, and capital goods orders falling by 14.6% to $101.4 billion.

 

Commodities, Currencies, Indexes, Yields

The S&P 500 index increased 1.2% to 5,871.05, the Nasdaq Composite edged up 1.4% to 19,009.62, and the Russell 2000 index advanced 1.0% to 2,061.91.

The yield on 2-year Treasury notes edged lower to 3.99%, 10-year Treasury notes decreased to 4.47%, and 30-year Treasury bonds declined to 4.98%.

WTI crude oil decreased $0.57 to $60.95 a barrel, and natural gas prices edged higher by $0.04 to $3.31 a thermal unit.

Gold decreased by $51.41 to 3,294.89 an ounce, and silver edged down by $0.37 to $33.04.

The dollar index, which weighs the US currency against a basket of foreign currencies, increased by 0.12 to 99.23 and traded at the lowest level since April 2022.

 

U.S. Stock Movers

Salesforce Inc. advanced 0.9% to $275.44 after the company agreed to acquire cloud data management company Informatica for $8 billion. 

Informatica increased 5.8% to $23.83 after the announcement of the deal. 

PDD Holdings declined 17.5% to $98.60 after the parent company of China-based Temu reported weaker-than-expected quarterly results.