The financial markets were not counting on a U.S.-China trade deal being reached over the weekend. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already said that this trade agreement, which the details are still vague and represent a 90-day pause, still represents progress in the U.S. making a strategic decoupling from China. Most of the broader reciprocal tariffs will be suspended while broad 10% duties will remain in effect. The stock market cheered at the open with a 3% gain in the S&P 500 and a 3.9% gain on the NASDAQ-100 at the opening bell on Monday.
Tactical Bulls wanted to identify the top U.S. stock gainers on the tariff news. While it would seem that the news is really a broader 90-day reprieve, the reality is that traders and investors are placing their capital bets as though this is the framework for how the U.S. and China (and other larger trading partners with tariffs) will work out their deals and allow the business community to get back to work with more clarity.
It makes sense that the companies with the most to lose under tariffs are currently the biggest gainers. There are a few surprises as well. This focus is on mega-cap stocks with more than $200 billion in market cap, as well as those which lead their indexes. This also means that if this grand trade deal falls apart that these are likely going to be the biggest losers if this news falls apart.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) was the biggest gainer of the mega-caps with a 6.9% gain to $206.53. Its sellers import many of the goods sold, so this is unsurprising.
Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) is the second largest gainer, up 6.2% at $61.89 as almost all of its shoes and apparel come in from China and elsewhere in Asia.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is an unsurprising third place as its iPhones and other computing devices and accessories are manufactured in China, India and elsewhere in Asia. It was up 5% at $208.42 in mid-day trading.
Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) was up 4.6% at $79.48 and 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) was up 4.5% at $149.04 in mid-day trading on Monday.
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) sells its massive farm and heavy construction machinery all over the world and it had a lot of tariff risk if the backlash means fewer orders for U.S. exporters of machinery. CAT was up 4.4% at $340.03 on Monday.
NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is a huge winner if chip sales reach anything toward normalization in China to terms prior to the last 90 days. NVIDIA was up 4.3% at $121.73 in mid-day trading.
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) was up almost 4.2% at $110.35 and Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was up 3.9% at $286.11 in mid-day trading.
American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) is a surprising #10 winner with a 3.8% gain to $295.39 and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) was up 3.75% at $588.37 on last look.
The Home Depot, Inc. 9NYSE: HD) is a more obvious winner as anything that helps housing and consumers helps it, and it does import a lot. Home Depot was up almost 3.2% at $373.89.
Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was a surprise at only #19 on the Dow’s top gainers because it was specifically targeted with airplane order cancellations and even returns by China in the last 45 days. Boeing was up just 1.4% at $197.55.
Outside of the Dow and looking at the S&P 500 gainers…
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), with large operations in China and sales internationally (and under the DOGE theme with Musk) was up about 6.8% at $318.68 in mid-day trading on Monday.
Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), which has no direct operation in China other than Zuckerberg admitting “Chinese advertisers have pulled back on spending” was last seen up over 7.7% at $632.63.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) was also winning as “other AI leader” in chip opportunities with a mid-day gain of more than 4.6% to $217.91.
It would seem that the largest oil producers would be winners if trading normalizes between the U.S. and China and among other larger nations which consume vast amounts of energy. Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) was up just 1.6% at $140.73 and Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) was last seen up just 1.2% at $108.65 in mid-day trading.