NEW YORK, Aug 6 — Wall Street stocks opened solidly higher today as China took steps to stabilise its currency amid an escalating trade war with the United States.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 25,863.41, up 0.6 per cent.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.7 per cent, rising to 2,865.18, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.1 per cent to 7,809.83.
US stocks have fallen the last six days, with especially bruising losses on Friday and yesterday following the latest tit-for-tat measures between Beijing and Washington.
Stocks sold off on Friday after US President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on US$300 billion (RM1.25 trillion) in Chinese goods and again yesterday after China let its currency depreciate and signalled it would halt purchases of US agricultural goods.
Today, China’s central bank “seemingly applied a discretionary ‘counter-cyclical adjustment’ to brake the yuan’s slide,” said Carl Weinberg, chief international economist at High Frequency Economics.
“In other words, it could have used its currency management rules to steer the yuan even cheaper, but it did the opposite.”
Weinberg described the ongoing US-China trade war as “debilitating for the global economy because of the uncertainty it causes for businesses and financial markets.” — AFP
