Stock futures move higher as trade deal hopes rise

By Arjun Panchadar

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday as expectations of a trade truce were strengthened by a report that the world’s two largest economies were “very close” to a deal, while jeweler Tiffany surged after agreeing to a sale.

Beijing and Washington were nearing a “phase one” trade deal, a Chinese state-backed tabloid said, lifting the mood further after a U.S. national security adviser said on Saturday that a pact was still possible by the end of the year.

Trade-sensitive chip stocks, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc (O:), Micron Technology Inc (O:) and Applied Materials Inc (O:), rose between 0.7% and 1% in premarket trading.

Last week the benchmark S&P 500 () snapped a six-week winning streak and the tech-heavy Nasdaq () registered its first weekly drop in eight weeks amid conflicting reports over the trade truce.

Trade deal hopes and robust third-quarter corporate earnings had helped Wall Street’s main indexes hit record highs this month.

At 7:12 a.m. ET, were up 69 points, or 0.25%. S&P 500 e-minis were up 6.75 points, or 0.22% and were up 26 points, or 0.31%.

Shares of Tesla Inc (O:) rose 5% premarket after Chief Executive Elon Musk indicated in a tweet on Sunday that the carmaker received 200,000 orders for its electric pickup truck within three days of launch.

Tiffany & Co (N:) gained 5.8% after the luxury jeweler agreed to a sweetened $16.2 billion deal with France’s LVMH (PA:).

U.S. discount brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp (O:) was up 2% after larger rival Charles Schwab Corp (N:) said it would buy the company in an all-stock deal valued at about $26 billion. Schwab was down about 1%.

Uber Technologies Inc (N:) fell 4.2% as the ride-hailing company was stripped of its London operating license for the second time in just over two years.

Netflix Inc (O:) slipped 0.8% after Wells Fargo (NYSE:) downgraded the shares of the streaming service to “underperform” from “market perform”.

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