01:19 PM EDT, 06/03/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US equity indexes rose after midday Tuesday as strong gains in technology and consumer discretionary helped counter the impact of a downgrade to economic growth in the United States to the slowest since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1% to 19,434.2, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to 5,965.2, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.5% to 42,509.3. Real estate, consumer staples, and communication services were decliners intraday.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) , part of the technology sector, and Tesla (TSLA), a consumer discretionary constituent, were up 3.1% and 3.5%, respectively. The duo was among the top three gainers among firms with a market capitalization of over $200 billion. Apple ( AAPL ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) were in the top 20 gainers from the same category, implying investors are gravitating toward mega-caps on a day when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development downgraded the outlook for global economic growth.

The OECD revised global growth projections to 2.9% this year from 3.3% in 2024. It expects US growth to slow to 1.6% this year, revised from the 2.2% forecast in March. At 1.6%, this would mark the weakest pace since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, according to a note from Stifel.

"Global economic prospects are weakening, with substantial barriers to trade, tighter financial conditions, diminishing confidence and heightened policy uncertainty projected to have adverse impacts on growth," the OECD said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will likely have a conversation this week, the White House said on Monday, following Trump's announcement late last week that steel and aluminum import tariffs will double to 50% from Wednesday. Last Friday, the president accused China of "totally violating" the Geneva pact.

"It's a difficult time to forecast right now given the relentless crossfire of trade headlines," Jim Reid, head of global fundamental credit strategy at Deutsche Bank, said in a note. "But there's a growing sense that we're now on a turbulent but sustained path towards de-escalation."

Even if the US administration remains hawkish on trade, it is evident there are limits to that approach, particularly in the face of market turmoil and declining approval ratings for President Trump, Reid said in the note. "So, although we think there's likely to be prolonged uncertainty and a notable slowdown in US growth over H2, the de-escalation so far will support growth relative to earlier expectations."

The ICE US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback's performance against the world's major currencies, advanced 0.6% to 99.25.

Gold futures retreated 0.8% to $3,342.12 per ounce.

US Treasury yields traded mixed, with the 10-year up one basis point to 4.47% and the two-year yield rose 2.1 basis points to 3.97%. Yields fell for the lower maturity government bonds.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures gained 1.7% to $63.58 a barrel.

In US economic news, US job openings rose to 7.391 million in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, higher than the 7.1 million expected in a survey compiled by Bloomberg and up from the 7.2 million reported for March. The April level represents 4.4% of total employment, up from 4.3% in March but down from 4.6% a year earlier.