Stocks – Wall Street Gains on Upbeat Trade Comments, M&A Activity 

Investing.com – Wall Street opened higher on Monday boosted by renewed optimism over prospects for a U.S.-China trade deal, while news of several massive deals also helped fuel sentiment.

The was up 86 points or 0.3% by 9:38 AM ET (13:38 GMT), while the inched up 13 points or 0.4% and the gained 65 points or 0.8%.

The Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper reported Monday that the two sides were “very close” to a deal on trade, which added to optimism from China’s announcement over the weekend that it plans to improve protection for intellectual property rights. IP rights was one of the main sticking points in negotiations with Washington. U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien also said on Saturday a deal was possible by the end of the year.

Trade sensitive stocks were higher, with Caterpillar (NYSE:) up 0.2%, Applied Materials (NASDAQ:) surging 2.3% and Micron (NASDAQ:) rising 0.4%.

Tiffany & Co (NYSE:) jumped 5.7% after LVMH (PA:) said it had reached an agreement to buy the U.S. jeweler for $16.2 billion, while TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:) increased 3% on reports that shareholders will receive 1.0836 of Charles Schwab (NYSE:) shares in a $26 billion all-stock deal. eBay Inc (NASDAQ:) surged 3.6% after the Wall Street Journal reported that it is closing in on a deal to sell StubHub to Viagogo for about $4 billion.

“You have positive comments on trade, and you have Schwab buying TD Ameritrade which is going to be supportive to the overall market,” said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York.

“I think it (Global Times report) speaks to the same thing. People are hopeful some type of agreement gets signed before the end of the year and we can move on to something further along on trade.”

Uber (NYSE:) fell 2% after it was stripped of its London license for the second time in two years, while Netflix (NASDAQ:) was flat after Wells Fargo (NYSE:) downgraded the stock to “underperform” from “market perform.”

Meanwhile, the , which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.1% to 98.280 and lost 0.5% to $1,462.85 a troy ounce. fell 0.1% to $57.74 a barrel.

-Reuters contributed to this report

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