NEW YORK: Wall Street's optimistic view of the US-China trade situation persisted Friday as stocks continued to rally, leaving the major indices on track for their first positive week in more than a month.

China's commerce ministry on Thursday helped cheer stock markets by signaling that Beijing may not respond in kind to Trump's latest tariff increases and was still willing to negotiate.

Nevertheless, on the last trading day of the month, the damage of recent weeks from trade war suggested stocks would close out August in the red, the first monthly loss since May.

About 15 minutes into the day's trading, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 were both up 0.4 percent at 26,465.32 and 2,934.72 respectively.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.3 percent at 7,996.53.

"One could argue that buyers are just pressing their luck," analyst Patrick O'Hare wrote at Briefing.com.

Traders are likely rebalancing their portfolios at the end of the month to favor equities after a huge gains this month in the Treasury market, he added.

Among individual companies, Campbell Soup Co surged 6.3 percent after posting better-than-expected earnings.

Meanwhile, in a bit of rosy economic news, the Commerce Department reported a July boost in consumer spending, which rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.6 percent for the month. —AFP