S&P 500 rallies 1%, on pace for first close above 6,800 ever on potential China trade truce: Live updates
Written by admin on October 27, 2025
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Oct. 27, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stocks jumped to new records on Monday after U.S. and China officials cooled tensions over the weekend, laying the groundwork for President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping to clinch a trade deal this week.
The S&P 500 climbed about 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.7%, bolstered by a rise in Nvidia and other chip stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 211 points, or 0.5%. All three major averages notched fresh all-time intraday highs in the session.
“I think we have a very successful framework for the leaders to discuss on Thursday,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The framework potentially includes a delay of China’s rare earth export restrictions that caused the latest trade flare-up, the withdrawal of Trump’s threatened 100% tariffs on China that were set to start Nov. 1, and a resumption of Chinese purchases of American soybeans. The agreement may also include a resolution of the TikTok dispute, with the U.S. getting a deal for the domestic version of the social video app.
“I have a lot of respect for President Xi, and we are going to come away with the deal,” Trump said on Monday from Air Force One.
Chipmakers, the sector with the most to lose from tensions with China, supported the rally Monday. Nvidia rose more than 2%, while Broadcom gained more than 1%. Tesla and Apple also added more than 5% and 1%, respectively, with the latter nearing $4 trillion in market cap.
Qualcomm reached a new all-time high after the company announced new artificial intelligence chips, putting it in competition with Nvidia and AMD. The stock was last up more than 11%.
“If we end up with some sort of a favorable trade agreement between the U.S. and China, then the two largest trading partners are once again working together. That would also be a very positive sign,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, told CNBC. “A lot of the forecasts for technology have been without the benefit of China, so once you can add China back into the equation, that would probably be fairly optimistic for the markets.”
Big Tech companies’ upcoming earnings reports are on tap, with several “Magnificent Seven” stocks, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft, set to release their third-quarter results this week. Investors also expect the Federal Reserve to reduce its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, particularly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released slightly cooler-than-expected inflation data last week.
“Small and mid caps are trading at a very steep discount to large caps, and so should we continue with rate cuts and the prospect of no recession, they also should do very well,” Stovall added.
Stocks are coming off a bullish week, with all three major indexes hitting record highs last Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its first-ever close above the 47,000 mark. The S&P 500 touched 6,800 for the first time ever Friday. All three major benchmarks posted their second week in a row of gains.
While investors were encouraged by improving U.S.-China relations, a setback with Canada kept their enthusiasm in check. Trump on Saturday put an additional 10% tariff on Canadian imports in retaliation for the Ontario provincial government not pulling its ad – which features former President Ronald Reagan knocking tariffs – fast enough.
Correction: This story was revised to reflect that Tobin Marcus is an analyst at Wolfe Research. A previous version contained a sentence in which the name of the firm was misspelled.
Palantir hits a new all-time high
Palantir jumped 3% Monday and had hit a new all-time high, surpassing its prior high from mid-August.
Monday’s gains came as Poland signed a with Palantir as the country seeks to upgrade its army amid record military spending.
The stock has been one of the best performers in the S&P 500 this year, rallying more than 150%.
Palantir Monday
— Yun Li
Bessent names five finalists for Fed chair
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters as U.S. President Donald Trump stands next to him aboard Air Force One en route to Tokyo, Japan, for the second stop on his Asia tour, Oct. 27, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday confirmed that the list of candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has been winnowed down to five, and President Donald Trump said the replacement is likely to be named by the end of the year.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Bessent said the finalists are current Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder, according to several media outlets.
Those names were reported earlier this month by CNBC. Read more.
— Jeff Cox
Goldman Sachs upgrades Victoria’s Secret to neutral following recent fashion show
In a Monday note, Goldman Sachs upgraded shares of lingerie seller Victoria’s Secret to a neutral rating from sell. The bank’s new 12-month price target of $32, raised from $18 prior, still represents a 4% downside from the company’s Friday close.
Shares of Victoria’s Secret have fallen 18% this year.
VSCO YTD chart
As a catalyst, analyst Brooke Roach pointed to the recent “successful” Victoria’s Secret fashion show on Oct. 15, which could indicate improving sentiment among consumers for the brand.
“The company has obtained new leadership and implemented several transformation initiatives under its Path to Potential strategy which have driven sequentially stronger brand relevance and consumer engagement with both the Victoria’s Secret and PINK banners,” the analyst wrote. “Our trackers now suggest modest improvements in brand engagement, lower promotionality, and improved net purchase intent vs. peers.”
Upcoming tailwinds include strengthening execution and a more robust innovation pipeline, she added.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Factory output holds positive in Texas, Fed survey shows
Manufacturing production in the Texas region held up in October though business activity remained weak, the Dallas Federal Reserve reported Monday.
The central bank’s monthly survey of business conditions showed a reading of 5.2 for the key production index, unchanged from September. Though the general business activity index improved, it was still negative at -5.0, up from -8.7 a month ago.
Inflation-related indexes eased a bit while the employment index rose 5.4 points to 2.0.
The survey measures the difference between companies reporting expansion against declines in activity.
— Jeff Cox
Argentina posts strong market, currency gains following Milei triumph
Argentina’s President Javier Milei waves to supporters as he arrives at the ruling party’s La Libertad Avanza headquarters following the results of the national midterm legislative election in Buenos Aires on Oct. 26, 2025.
Luis Robayo | AFP | Getty Images
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, with the strong backing of the Trump administration, won a landslide victory Sunday that was even stronger than polls had indicated.
La Libertad Avanza (“Freedom Advances”) took 41.5% of the vote, giving Milei a veto-proof majority with which to continue his economic austerity agenda. With its libertarian agenda, the party has been able to slash inflation from 12.8% to 2.1% while achieving a fiscal surplus and enacting sweeping deregulation actions.
Markets reacted positively to the political developments. An exchange-traded fund that mirrors activity in the nation, the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF, soared 19% Monday. The Argentinian merval also saw outsized gains, rising more than 17%.
President Donald Trump has been a strong backer of Milei, tying some $40 billion in financial aid to the election.
— Jeff Cox
Huntington Bancshares, American Water Works drop after planning large acquisitions
Wall Street analysts remain skeptical on Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat products are offered for sale at a grocery store on February 29, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Wall Street remains skeptical on Beyond Meat. Shares of the alternative meat food company soared more than 230% last week, but analysts say liquidity issues and a poor sales outlook continue to weigh on the stock. The stock was down by more than 6% on Monday.
“We remain Underweight on BYND,” Barclays’ analyst Benjamin M. Theurer wrote on Friday. “While the company has avoided immediate liquidity issues with its recent debt swap, declining sales and operating losses continue to linger. We will need to see a consistent period of turnaround and cost-cutting from BYND as it faces consistent negative FCF.”
BTIG’s Peter Saleh, who has a neutral rating on the stock, wrote that the company’s preannounced results show further earnings downside. He also specified that the recent “meme frenzy doesn’t actually help make money.”
“The weaker sales growth outlook, heightened competition, existing cash burn and uncertainty on additional capital raises lead to our Neutral rating,” he wrote.
Beyond Meat, 1-day
— Sarah Min
Qualcomm shares pop 18% after company announces AI chips to compete with AMD, Nvidia
Shares of Qualcomm jumped more than 18% on Monday, reaching a fresh 52-week high, after the company announced that it will release new artificial intelligence accelerator chips to target the AI inference market.
The announcement marks a shift from Qualcomm, which has so far focused on semiconductors for wireless connectivity and mobile devices and not massive data centers. In announcing these new chips, Qualcomm is matching Nvidia and AMD‘s graphics processing units, or GPU, offerings and adding competition to the AI semiconductor market.
Qualcomm said that both the AI200, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack.
Qualcomm stock performance this year.
Qualcomm shares are up more than 29% year to date.
— Pia Singh, Kif Leswing
Stocks hit new highs
The three leading U.S. indexes soared to new heights on Monday morning.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 325.19 points, or about 0.7%, to a high of 47,532.31. The S&P 500 rose around 1% to 6,856.30, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.5% to 23,547.64.
— Sean Conlon
Stocks open in the green to kick off the trading week
Stocks traded higher on Monday morning.
The S&P 500 rose 0.9% just after the opening bell, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also moved up 302 points, or 0.6%.
— Sean Conlon
Stocks making the biggest moves premarket
Jeff Greenberg | Universal Images Group | Getty Images
Here are some of the names making moves before the opening bell.
- Avidity Biosciences — Avidity Biosciences surged 43% after Novartis said it would acquire the biopharmaceutical company for about $12 billion in cash. Novartis will pay Avidity shareholders $72 a share, a premium of 46% to Friday’s closing price. U.S.-listed shares of Novartis shed 1.4%.
- Lululemon Athletica — Shares rose 6% after the athletic apparel maker announced it was partnering with the National Football League and Fanatics to launch an apparel collection for all NFL teams.
- GameStop — The video-game retailer gained more than 4% after the White House’s official X account reposted a statement from GameStop’s handle that the “console wars” are over with an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump as a character from video game franchise “Halo.” GameStop’s statement comes after Microsoft said that Xbox game Halo will be available on rival Sony’s PlayStation, the first time that the game will be available on a competing console.
To see more stocks moving in premarket trading, read the full story here.
— Michelle Fox
Janus Henderson jumps on buyout report
Shares of Janus Henderson jumped nearly 14% after Bloomberg reported that Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is working on an offer to buyout the asset manager.
Trian Fund Management is working with investment firm General Catalyst to acquire the remaining shares of Janus Henderson it doesn’t already own, the report said. The offer values the asset manager at about $7 billion, according to Bloomberg, who cited people familiar with the matter.
— Michelle Fox
JPMorgan upgrades discount retailer Five Below
JPMorgan sees several upcoming catalysts for Five Below as the fall holiday season approaches.
The bank upgraded shares of the discount retailer to an overweight rating from neutral. It also raised its price target to $186 per share from $154.
Shares of Five Below have surged 49% this year. JPMorgan’s new price target is approximately 19% above where the stock closed on Friday afternoon.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
FIVE, 1-day
— Lisa Kailai Han
Keurig Dr Pepper gains after latest quarterly results
A Keurig coffee maker at a store in New York, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024.
Eilon Paz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Keurig Dr Pepper shares jumped more than 8% in premarket trading on Monday after the beverage company posted better-than-expected third-quarter revenue and raised its full-year revenue growth outlook.
The company posted revenue for the quarter of $4.31 billion, above the $4.15 billion that analysts polled by FactSet had penciled in. Adjusted earnings came in line with the consensus estimate at 54 cents per share.
Keurig Dr Pepper also increased its revenue growth guidance for the full year, now expecting that to be in the high single-digit percentage range compared to last year. That’s up from its prior guidance of a mid-single-digit percentage range.
KDP, 1-day
— Sean Conlon
Global stocks rally on U.S.-China trade deal hopes
Global markets rallied at the start of the week as investors were buoyed by growing optimism that the U.S. and China are nearing an agreement on trade.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 added about 0.3% on Monday morning, which followed earlier solid gains across Asian markets, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 breaching the 50,000 mark for the first time to close up 2.46% and South Korea’s Kospi rising 2.57% on the day. Read more.
— Hugh Leask
Rare earth stocks fall after Bessent says China to delay export controls
Shares of several U.S.-listed rare earth miners fell on Monday as U.S. officials said they expect China to delay introducing export controls on critical minerals as part of a broader trade deal.
Critical Metals fell 8.5% in premarket trade, USA Rare Earth declined 7.2%, MP Materials was down 5.3% and Trilogy Metals lost 5%. Energy Fuels and NioCorp Developments, meanwhile, traded 4% and 6% lower, respectively.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday that Washington and Beijing were expected to reach a deal to avoid a new 100% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods, with Beijing set to defer on imposing strict rare earth export controls.
His comments come ahead of a high-stakes meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday. Read more.
Critical Metals shares, 1-day
— Sam Meredith
Novartis strikes $12 billion deal to acquire Avidity Biosciences
A sign of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis is seen on the top of a building at Novartis Campus in Basel on Sept. 9, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has agreed to buy biotechnology company Avidity Biosciences for about $12 billion, the company said Sunday.
Novartis will pay Avidity shareholders $72 a share in cash, a premium of 46% to the company’s Friday closing price.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, after Avidity spins out parts of its business, including its early-stage precision cardiology programs, the company said in a statement.
Read the full story here.
— Liz Napolitano
Stock futures rise
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively, around 6 p.m. ET on Sunday. Dow futures added 290 points, or 0.6%.
— Liz Napolitano
