Wall Street rallies to more records as gold's price slumps again

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks climbed to more records on Monday ahead of a week packed with potentially market-moving events for Wall Street.

The S&P 500 rose 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 337 points, or 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.9%. Each of the trio set an all-time high for a second straight day.

Stocks also rallied in Asia ahead of a meeting on Thursday between the heads of the United States and China. The hope is that the talks could clear rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies and allow the global economy to keep motoring.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there’s “a framework” for U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss at their meeting, while Trump said, “We feel good” about working things out with China.

That’s just one of many things that will need to go right this week in order for the U.S. stock market’s tremendous, record-breaking rally to continue. The S&P 500 has shot up a stunning 38% since hitting a low in April, when worries about Trump’s tariffs on China and other countries were at their peak. Besides hopes for easing trade tensions, the rally has also been built on expectations for several more things to happen.

One is that the Federal Reserve will keep cutting interest rates in order to give the slowing job market a boost. The Fed’s next announcement on interest rates is due on Wednesday, and the nearly unanimous expectation among traders is that it will cut the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point at a second straight meeting.