<p class="title">Wall Street's optimistic view of the US-China trade situation persisted Friday as stocks continued to rally, leaving the major indices on track for their first positive week in more than a month.</p>.<p class="bodytext">China's commerce ministry on Thursday helped cheer stock markets by signalling that Beijing may not respond in kind to Trump's latest tariff increases and was still willing to negotiate.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Nevertheless, on the last trading day of the month, the damage of recent weeks from trade war suggested stocks would close out August in the red, the first monthly loss since May.</p>.<p class="bodytext">About 15 minutes into the day's trading, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 were both up 0.4 per cent at 26,465.32 and 2,934.72 respectively.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.3 per cent at 7,996.53.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"One could argue that buyers are just pressing their luck," analyst Patrick O'Hare wrote at Briefing.com.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Traders are likely rebalancing their portfolios at the end of the month to favour equities after a huge gain this month in the Treasury market, he added.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Among individual companies, Campbell Soup Co surged 6.3 per cent after posting better-than-expected earnings.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Meanwhile, in a bit of rosy economic news, the Commerce Department reported a July boost in consumer spending, which rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.6 per cent for the month.</p>
<p class="title">Wall Street's optimistic view of the US-China trade situation persisted Friday as stocks continued to rally, leaving the major indices on track for their first positive week in more than a month.</p>.<p class="bodytext">China's commerce ministry on Thursday helped cheer stock markets by signalling that Beijing may not respond in kind to Trump's latest tariff increases and was still willing to negotiate.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Nevertheless, on the last trading day of the month, the damage of recent weeks from trade war suggested stocks would close out August in the red, the first monthly loss since May.</p>.<p class="bodytext">About 15 minutes into the day's trading, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 were both up 0.4 per cent at 26,465.32 and 2,934.72 respectively.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.3 per cent at 7,996.53.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"One could argue that buyers are just pressing their luck," analyst Patrick O'Hare wrote at Briefing.com.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Traders are likely rebalancing their portfolios at the end of the month to favour equities after a huge gain this month in the Treasury market, he added.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Among individual companies, Campbell Soup Co surged 6.3 per cent after posting better-than-expected earnings.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Meanwhile, in a bit of rosy economic news, the Commerce Department reported a July boost in consumer spending, which rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.6 per cent for the month.</p>