Stocks Add to Gains as Investors Look Forward to Trade Talks



Stocks rose slightly on Monday as investors looked ahead to a key meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at this week’s upcoming G-20 summit.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average took on 42.24 points to pause for lunch at 26,761.37, buoyed by United Technologies.

The S&P 500 stayed afloat 1.09 points to 2,951.55, as the financials and consumer staples sectors outperformed

The NASDAQ Composite fell back 1.95 points to 8,029.76

The major indexes came into Monday’s session up more than 7% each in June. Those gains erased a massive selloff in May, which was fueled by China and the U.S. hiking tariffs on each other’s products.

Dow member United Technologies rose 1% after an analyst at Cowen upgraded the stock to outperform from market perform. Deere shares, meanwhile, climbed 0.7% after being upgraded to buy from neutral at UBS.

In corporate news, Caesars Entertainment shares surged 14% after the casino operator agreed to be bought out by Eldorado Resorts for more than $17 billion, including debt.

Trump and Xi are expected to discuss the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China at the summit, which is set to start Friday. Investors are hopeful the two leaders will get closer to a deal that will end the conflict.

China and the U.S. have slapped tariffs on billions of dollars worth of their goods over the past year. Last month, the two countries hiked tariffs targeting some goods.

Prices for the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury gained ground, thus lowering yields to 2.02% from Friday’s 2.06%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Oil prices removed 33 cents to $57.10 U.S. a barrel.

Gold prices improved $16.80 to $1,416.90 U.S. an ounce.