Traders send stocks soaring with partial US-China trade deal seeming imminent

Dow futures surged more than 250 points before the open Friday as optimism swelled over a possible partial trade deal between the US and China. 

The S&P and Nasdaq futures each rose roughly 1%.

The trade impetus du jour is a meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday, following a day of negotiations between the two countries on Thursday.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the possible initial concessions of a partial deal could include a commitment from China to purchase more US agricultural products, a currency pact between the countries that would prevent China from devaluing its currency, the suspension of planned US tariffs and allowing US companies to work with blacklisted Chinese telecom titan Huawei.

Nehal Chokshi, managing director for enterprise and consumer technology at Maxim Group, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday that certain US industries are in a unique position to reap benefits, including US contract manufacturers.

“One of the key issues here is theft of intellectual property of non-Chinese companies,” Chokshi said. “[I think we’re going to see] continued movement of the empirical data out of China — ie the actual products that are being manufactured in China. So contract manufacturers outside of China, those will tend to benefit.”

Chokshi namedropped IEC Electronics Corp (NYSEAMERICAN:IEC), a manufacturer with operations in Rochester, New York, as one such company to watch.

IEC offers electronics manufacturing services to advanced technology companies that produce life-saving and mission-critical products in the aerospace, defense, industrial and medical sectors. The company recently secured a $40 million contract with a Tier 2 US defense contractor.

President Trump, for his part, struck a positive tone Thursday evening, telling reporters, “We had a very, very good negotiation.”

The comment marked a shift from Thursday morning, where Trump raised the question on Twitter of whether he wanted to get a deal done. 

Big day of negotiations with China. They want to make a deal, but do I? I meet with the Vice Premier tomorrow at The White House.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2019

Contact Andrew Kessel at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel

Story by ProactiveInvestors