The Japan Times - US stocks rally again after Trump backs off Greenland tariff threat

Wall Street indices, which jumped more than one percent Wednesday after Trump significantly softened his tone on Greenland, finished solidly higher again Thursday.

The broad-based S&P 500 won 0.6 percent.

After focusing on Greenland, Iran and other geopolitical hotspots, "it seems like there's a lot of tailwinds back in the market," said Tom O'Shea, from Innovator Capital Management. "The economy is in a really good position to move forward."

US data releases Thursday included a modest uptick in US third-quarter growth to 4.4 percent and a stable reading on inflation for November.

Next week's US earnings calendar is packed with results from Apple, Microsoft, Boeing and other corporate giants. There will also be a Federal Reserve monetary policy decision.

Markets had been rattled this week by the US president saying he would hammer several nations -- including Germany, France, Britain and Denmark -- with levies for their pushback against his grab for Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory.

But relief came Wednesday when Trump backed down on threats to seize the Arctic island by force from ally Denmark and retracted his tariff threat.

"That was enough to trigger the so-called TACO trade -- 'Trump Always Chickens Out' -- and markets responded with one of their strongest rallies in recent months," said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com.

- Trade wars 'biggest concern' -

But analysts said there was no guarantee that Europe-US relations had improved durably, a concern that capped gains.

"The Greenland situation may have calmed down, but there are still enough unanswered questions," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. "It's more about financial markets regaining balance than moving into top gear."

One lesson from this week's price swings was that "financial markets fear tariffs more than geopolitical risks," noted Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB. "Trade wars are the biggest concern for markets."

Advances in Asian equities earlier were led by tech-heavy markets Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul, with the latter topping 5,000 points for the first time as chip companies enjoyed bumper gains.

The surge came after Nvidia boss Jensen Huang told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the infrastructure to develop and power generative AI models will require further "trillions" of dollars in investment.

He told delegates that the AI boom "has started the largest infrastructure buildout in human history".

The remarks helped boost South Korean chip leaders Samsung and SK hynix, tech investment giant SoftBank in Japan, and European heavyweights ASML and STMicroelectronics.

French video game giant Ubisoft lost more than a third of its value in a single session, with its stock closing more than 39 percent lower, after the "Assassin's Creed" maker announced it expected to make huge losses this year and needed to restructure drastically.

- Key figures at around 2110 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.6 percent at 49,384.01 (close)

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.6 percent at 6,913.35 (close)

New York - NASDAQ: UP 0.9 percent at 23,436.02 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 10,150.05 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 8,148.89 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 1.2 percent at 24,856.47 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.7 percent at 53,688.89 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.2 percent at 26,629.96 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 4,122.58 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1751 from $1.1685 on Wednesday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3500 from $1.3439

Dollar/yen: UP at 158.39 yen from 158.30 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.05 pence from 87.00 pence

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.8 percent at $64.06 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.1 percent at $59.36 per barrel

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Y.Hara--JT