Wall Street Shrugs Off China Jitters as Big Banks Power a Rally

The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Bloomberg, and CNBC contributed to this report.

Stocks climbed Wednesday after another round of blowout bank earnings helped investors look past fresh US–China trade tensions. The Dow added about 96 points (0.2%), the S&P 500 rose 0.5%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

Bank of America jumped roughly 4% and Morgan Stanley surged about 5% after both crushed third-quarter estimates, led by booming investment banking and lively trading desks. Their beats followed strong results from Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo a day earlier — fuel for the view that corporate America remains in solid shape. As CFRA’s Sam Stovall put it, banks “hit the ball out of the park,” and the prospect of another Fed rate cut later this month is keeping sentiment buoyant.

The upbeat tape came a day after a whipsaw session sparked by President Donald Trump’s threat of a cooking-oil embargo on China over stalled soybean purchases — another turn in a fast-escalating trade spat that also includes talk of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington won’t negotiate “because the stock market is going down,” while US trade officials suggested timing will hinge on Beijing’s next move.

Breadth improved notably, with thousands of NYSE listings in the green, chip names rebounding on upbeat industry chatter, and bank stocks broadly higher. In short: earnings are doing the heavy lifting, and for now, that’s enough to outweigh the geopolitics.