Tech, Health Leading Stocks Up

(AP) -- Stocks moved broadly higher in early trading on Wall Street Tuesday, extending the market's solid gains from the day before.

Technology and health care stocks accounted for much of the gains. Autodesk rose 1.8% and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals added 2.1%.

Energy companies also rose along with the price of crude oil. Occidental Petroleum added 1.2%.

This week's gains have helped the stock indexes claw back more of their losses from last week, when another escalation in the trade war between the U.S. and China roiled the market.

Investors found reason to be tentatively optimistic again about the potential for progress in the costly trade conflict on Monday after President Donald Trump said his negotiators had received encouraging calls from China over the weekend. Traders drew encouragement from the development, even though China's foreign ministry denied knowledge of any such calls.

Market watchers are becoming increasingly circumspect about what lies ahead. UBS, the largest wealth manager in the world, recommended that customers reduce their exposure to stocks, the first time the bank has done so since the depths of Europe's debt crisis in 2012.

Major U.S. indexes are on track for losses of 3% or more in August in what has been a volatile month for the market. Investors are trying to gauge whether trade conflicts and slowing economies around the world will drag the U.S. into a recession.

KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 was up 0.4% as of 10:08 a.m. Eastern Time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 89 points, or 0.4%, to 25,991. The Nasdaq rose 0.6%.

Major indexes in Europe were broadly higher.

TRADE WAR: On Friday, China announced new tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods. Trump responded angrily on Twitter, at one point saying he "hereby ordered" U.S. companies with operations in China to consider moving them to other countries, including the U.S.

Trump later announced the U.S. would increase existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods to 30% from 25%, and that new tariffs on another $300 billion of imports would be 15% instead of 10%.

BOND MARKET: Stocks headed higher even though the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury dropped back below the yield on the two-year Treasury. This so-called inversion of the U.S. yield curve has accurately predicted the past five recessions. When the yield curve inverted earlier this month for the first time since 2007, it led to a broad market sell-off.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 1.51% from 1.54% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 1.55% from 1.53% on Monday.

NOT SO PAINFUL: Johnson & Johnson rose 3% after a ruling against the company in an Oklahoma opiod case wound up being less than investors were expecting.

WHO'S THE BOSS? Troubled pizza company Papa John's rose 6.2% after naming a new CEO.

NOT SO SNACKWORTHY: J.M. Smucker sank 9.3% after turning in weak results.

(CZ)