FANG Stocks Rebound As Trump And Kudlow Ease Trade Tensions

Stocks opened higher on Monday after officials in President Donald Trump’s administration downplayed the potential impact of any looming trade war between the U.S. and China. The morning’s biggest winners were tech stocks, with the so-called “FANG” group—Facebook FB, Amazon AMZN, Netflix NFLX, and Alphabet GOOGL—witnessing a slight rebound from Friday’s selloff.

Key officials in the White House appear keen to remind investors that most new tariffs are not yet in place and the overarching dispute might be settled through negotiations. For instance, on Sunday, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said in an interview that the ongoing trade spat “might turn out to be very benign.”

President Trump echoed this sentiment later in the day, tweeting that any tariffs would be reciprocal and that he envisioned a “Great future for both countries!”

The S&P 500 and Dow indexes both moved about 1% higher in early Monday trading on the back of this new rhetoric. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite surged more than 1.5% after leading the selloff at the end of the previous trading week.

Several major tech giants helped push the sector’s rebound on Monday morning. Facebook bounced more than 1%, while Amazon gained about 2%. Alphabet shares popped about 2.5%, and Netflix led the FANG group with early gains of more than 3%.

Outside of the traditional FANG group, many other tech bellwethers were in the green in morning trading. Apple AAPL was up more than 2%, Nvidia NVDA added as much as 2.5%, and Micron MU moved roughly 2% higher.

Trade tensions between the U.S. and China are likely to dominate the market’s attention for the foreseeable future, especially considering that the discussion period for proposed U.S. tariffs means that the earliest new charges might be imposed is somewhere around early August.

Still, it is possible that another strong earnings season could inspire renewed confidence in the technology space. According to Zacks Director of Research Sheraz Mian and our latest Earnings Trends report, total earnings for the sector are expected to be up 20.7% on 11.4% higher revenues. This would follow 24.2% earnings growth and 11.1% revenue growth in the previous quarter.