Dow Jones Jumps after U.S.-China Trade Deal Updates

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by Teuta Franjkovic · 3 min read
Dow Jones Jumps after U.S.-China Trade Deal Updates
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As a direct reaction, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index added 100 points at 4:15 am ET, mostly powered by strong returns for shares of JPMorgan Chase and Cisco Systems.

The Dow Jones started jumping on Friday after the United States President Donald Trump signed off on the phase one trade deal with China presented to him by trade negotiators during a Thursday meeting at the White House.

The agreement includes the delay of extra tariffs that would have been imposed on December 15 and reducing tariffs on $360 billion worth of Chinese imports by half. However, even though it is said that one of the main terms is for China to pledge to purchase large amounts of U.S. agricultural and other products, protect U.S. intellectual-property rights and allow wider access to China’s financial-services sector, it is still not known what exact terms will the U.S. have to fulfill.

That is precisely why the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that her country was committed to resolving trade issues with the United States but the deal must be mutually beneficial. She added negotiations “should be based on the principles of equality and mutual respect.”

As a direct reaction, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index added 100 points at 4:15 am ET, mostly powered by strong returns for shares of JPMorgan Chase and Cisco Systems.

Cisco announced that it had begun selling networking chips directly to large internet customers including Facebook, Microsoft, and AT&T.

The move is a huge step for Cisco especially when it’s known that during the last few years, those same tech giants went on to create their own networking hardware, and outsourcing the production to overseas manufacturers. For example, Facebook made the non-profit Open Compute Foundation to enable companies to let their data be shared especially those regarding center hardware designs in order to let others improve them and therefore build their own servers and networking gear.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said that they “get to open doors to customers we never had.” However, Patrick Moorhead, the president of research for Moor Insights & Strategy, explains it well by saying Cisco’s new chip business shows there is a broader trend pursued among cloud computing providers in order to build custom computer chips for data center gear. “If Cisco wants to do business with these cloud giants, it must sell networking components as opposed to all-in-one networking equipment” he said.

The stocks of Cisco at premarket trading were up by 0,7% to $45.99.

JPMorgan’s Dividend Probably to Rise

JPMorgan had a pretty solid 2019, with the stock jumping more than 30% from December last year. At the time of writing the stock was rising 0.58% in premarket trading to $138.82. The truth is, JPMorgan was loved by investors for a long time, and even though the financial crisis caused much of turbulence, the company made it through difficulties successfully during the last ten years.

In September the company declared a quarterly dividend of 90 cents per share on the outstanding shares of the common stock of JPMorgan Chase, an increase from the prior quarterly dividend of 80 cents per share. However, shareholders now want to know if they can expect more of the same in 2020.

Bank has improved its deposit base and loan portfolio as well, with $2.77 trillion in total assets as of the end of the third quarter of 2019. Consumer banking has been particularly strong, with credit cards, client investments, and mobile banking showing profits over the past year. That is why investors may expect that JPMorgan will likely keep boosting its dividend by similar amounts to what it did in 2019, since the boosting the payout to an even $1 per share each quarter would represent an 11% rise.

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