By Will Horner

U.S. stocks climbed, boosted by hopes for progress toward a U.S.-China trade deal.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each gained 0.3% Wednesday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%.

The gains come after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a CNBC interview that there is "a path to complete" a trade deal between the U.S. and China. He also said that a deal had previously been nearly done. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet at the G-20 in Japan later this week, in what is seen by analysts as an important moment in the trade dispute between the two nations.

The upward momentum in equities marked a reversal from Tuesday, after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell defended the central bank's independence, pushing back against signals from financial markets and calls from President Trump to lower interest rates. Mr. Powell said officials would ease monetary policy only if data showed a sustained downward trend in the U.S. economy.

The comments from Mr. Powell and other Fed officials might have been aimed at putting a "cold shower on markets" which were "very heated up" about the prospect of a large cut in interest rates, said Thomas Flury, Head of foreign exchange at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Fed officials "wanted to prevent markets from running into too much exuberance on the rate cut story...It's a game with communication and playing with expectations to bring markets a bit back into more reasonable ranges," he said.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note recently rose to 2.017% Wednesday, from 1.994% Tuesday. Bond yields fall as prices rise.

Oil markets rallied as the rhetoric between Iran and the U.S. grew more confrontational and after data from an industry group late Tuesday showed U.S. crude stockpiles had fallen by more than expected. Global benchmark brent crude oil jumped 1.4% to $65.17 Wednesday, while U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate climbed 2.4% to $59.22 a barrel.

Bitcoin extended its record rise, breaking above $12,000 as cryptocurrencies have benefited since Facebook said last week it planned to launch its own digital currency. Bitcoin reached $12,820.11.

Micron Technology soared 13% Wednesday after the memory chip maker reported better-than-expected third-quarter results and said Tuesday that it had resumed shipments to Huawei after determining that they didn't run afoul of U.S. curbs on exports to the Chinese telecom giant.

A four-day rally in gold prices halted, after propelling the precious metal to its highest level since 2013. Gold fell Wednesday 0.4% to $1,412.90 a troy ounce.

Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 was roughly flat. Asian markets were slightly lower or close to flat, with Japan's Nikkei posting the largest decline of 0.5%.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 26, 2019 09:59 ET (13:59 GMT)

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