Stocks climb after a court blocks many of Trump’s tariffs

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rising on Thursday after a U.S. court blocked many of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, though the gains got less strong as trading progressed from Asia to New York.

The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in morning trading, and it pulled within 3.6% of its all-time high set earlier this year. It had dropped roughly 20% below the mark last month, when fears were at their worst about whether Trump’s trade war would drive the economy into a recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 80 points, or 0.2%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% higher.

The gains were even bigger in Asia, where markets had the first chance to react to the ruling late Wednesday by the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York. It said that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited for ordering massive increases in taxes on imports worldwide does not authorize the use of tariffs.

The White House immediately appealed, and the long-term outcome of legal disputes over tariffs remains uncertain. The court’s ruling also affects only some of Trump’s tariffs, not those on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, which were invoked under a different law.

Trump “is still able to impose significant and wide-ranging tariffs over the longer-term through other means,” according to Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, chief investment officer of global equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Such uncertainty helped dampen the excitement in financial markets as trading headed through Europe into the United States, where the gains were much more modest than in Asia. The U.S. court’s move was nevertheless seen as a positive for financial markets.

“The bar is raised for President Trump to resurrect his tariffs,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

“Markets are pricing that this is a better type of uncertainty than what we’ve had since Liberation Day,” which is when Trump announced a worldwide set of sweeping tariffs.

On Wall Street, tech stocks led the way after Nvidia once again topped analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue in the latest quarter.

The chip company has grown into one of the U.S. stock market’s largest and most influential stocks because of the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, and its 4.9% rise was the strongest force by far moving the S&P 500 upward.

C3ai, an AI application software company, jumped 29% after it reported stronger profit than analysts expected for its latest quarter. It also said the U.S. Air Force increased the maximum possible value for its contract by $350 million to $450 million. The company’s revenue last quarter totaled $108.7 million.

E.l.f. Beauty was another big winner and rose 27.8% after the cosmetics company delivered a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said it agreed to buy Hailey Bieber’s Rhode skincare brand in a $1 billion deal. Rhode had $212 million in net sales in the 12 months through March.

Bieber, a model and the wife of singer Justin Bieber, will be Rhode’s chief creative officer and head of innovation and also a strategic advisor to the combined companies.

They helped offset a drop for Best Buy, which fell 7.8% even though it reported a stronger profit than expected. Its revenue fell short of analysts’ forecasts.

The electronics retailer also cut its forecasted ranges for revenue and profit over the full year on the assumption that “tariffs stay at the current levels for the rest of the year, and there is no material change in consumer behavior from the trends we have seen in recent quarters,” Chief Financial Officer Matt Bilunas said.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased a bit following some mixed reports on the economy. One said that the U.S. economy likely shrunk by less in the first three months of the year than earlier estimated. Another said slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.44% from 4.47% late Wednesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more closely with expectations for where the Federal Reserve will take overnight interest rates, fell to 3.94% from 3.96%.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.9% to help lead Asian markets higher.

In South Korea, which like Japan relies heavily on exports to the United States, the Kospi rallied 1.9%. Its market also got a boost from the Bank of Korea, which cut its key interest rate to ease pressure on the economy.

The moves in Europe were more muted. ’s CAC 40 rose 0.1%, and ’s DAX swung from an early gain to a dip of 0.2%.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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