S&P 500 rises as investors shake off Trump’s trade battles

S&P 500 rises as investors shake off Trump’s trade battles, Nasdaq gains 1% led by Palantir: Live updates

The Nasdaq Composite
and S&P 500
moved higher on Tuesday thanks to a strong gain in Palantir
, as Wall Street tries to find stable footing following the latest developments on the global trade front.

The tech-heavy index gained around 1%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
traded climbed 78 points, or about 0.2%.

Palantir shares popped 22% on fourth-quarter results that beat analyst expectations and had hit a fresh record high. The stock was headed for its best day since Feb. 6, 2024 — when it rallied 30.1%.

Other big tech names like Nvidia
were moving in sympathy with Palantir’s move higher. That stock rose nearly 2% during the session.

Tariff latest
The Chinese government slapped tariffs of up to 15% on U.S. imports of coal and liquefied natural gas and 10% higher duties on crude oil, farm equipment and selected cars, effective Feb. 10.

The move comes after the U.S. agreed to pause more aggressive levies on Canada and Mexico. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in a post on social media site X on Monday evening that Trump agreed to halt the implementation of tariffs against Canada for at least 30 days. Earlier on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that duties on Mexico imports to the U.S. would also be halted for a month.

Stocks are coming off a volatile trading session, in which the major averages made a striking turnaround after an initial global sell-off. Ultimately, the major averages ended Monday well off their lows of the day, but they still booked losses. The 30-stock Dow slipped 0.28%, while the S&P 500
fell 0.76%. The Nasdaq Composite
dropped 1.2%.

Jay Hatfield of Infrastructure Capital Advisors thinks investors are “way too negative” on tariffs, noting that a strengthening dollar over the past few months could offset some of the impacts. He has an S&P 500 year-end target of 7,000, which implies almost 17% upside from Monday’s close.

“These are political tariffs, not economic tariffs, and so they’re not going to last,” the firm’s chief executive told CNBC. “What we do think, which is out of consensus, is that eventually we’re going to end up with 5% to 10% tariffs on most imported goods, and that is tolerable.”

That includes Europe, he said. On Sunday, Trump warned that he would impose tariffs on both the European Union and the U.K.

“People [will] freak, and then they’ll realize, okay, well actually … we got revenue from that,” he continued. “So, we’re pretty hyper-bulled up.”