Stock market today: Wall Street rises ahead of the latest deadline on tariffs

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are remaining calm on Monday, ahead of President Donald Trump's latest deadline on tariffs.

The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 138 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.

Wall Street is coming off a rocky couple of weeks, starting after the S&P 500 set a record following a parade of fatter-than-expected profit reports from big U.S. companies. Then, the market dove sharply on several weaker-than-expected reports on the U.S. economy, including a couple showing U.S. households are getting much more pessimistic about inflation because of the threat of tariffs.

A set of tariffs announced by Trump on Canada, Mexico and China are set to take effect on Tuesday, but he has shown he can pull back on such announcements at the last minute. That's what he did a month ago, when he delayed implementation of the taxes on imports from Canada and Mexico.

The hope on Wall Street is that Trump is using the threat of tariffs as merely a tool for negotiations and that he’ll ultimately go through with policies that would mean less damage for the global economy and trade.

Stocks bounced back strongly on Friday, with Nvidia and some of the other beaten-down areas in the recent slump leading the way. They were mixed on Monday, with Nvidia down 2.1% but Elon Musk's Tesla up 2.8%.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Kroger fell 1.3% after the grocery chain's Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen resigned following an internal investigation into his personal conduct.

The market was holding relatively steady ahead of not only Tuesday’s tariff deadline but also earnings reports from several retailers, including Best Buy, Ross Stores and AutoZone.

Such profit reports are always highly anticipated because they can shed light on how well U.S. consumers are doing, and spending by U.S. households is the main engine for the world’s largest economy. But the reports could carry particular resonance following recent data showing U.S. households may not be waiting for tariffs to actually hit to change their behavior.

All the way across the Pacific in China, manufacturers reported an uptick in orders in February as importers rushed to beat higher U.S. tariffs and a Chinese state media report said that Beijing was considering ways to retaliate.

Trump had imposed a tariff of 10% on imports from, China and that's scheduled to rise to 20% beginning Tuesday. He also ended the “de minimis” loophole that exempted imports worth less than $800 from tariffs.

In Hong Kong, Chinese bubble tea chain Mixue Bingcheng’s stock soared 43% following its $444 million debut on the market. The company claims to be the world’s largest food retail chain, with more than 45,000 outlets, and its jump came as the Hang Seng index rose 0.3%.

Indexes rose by even more across Europe and in Tokyo. European markets leaped after a report showed an easing of inflation in February. That should help the European Central Bank, which investors widely expect will deliver another cut to interest rates later this week.

Germany's DAX surged 3.1%, and France's CAC 40 jumped 1.7% on its way to a record. Stocks outside the United States have performed better than the S&P 500 this year, even with Trump's promises for "America First" policies

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was drifting around 4.24%. It's come down sharply since January, when it was approaching 4.80%, as worries have built about the possibility of a slowing U.S. economy.

___

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.