02:33 PM EDT, 06/09/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes were higher after midday Monday as a new round of trade negotiations with China started, while markets awaited official inflation data for May due later in the week.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.4% at 19,612.3 intraday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 6,017.9. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.2% to 42,862.1. Barring financials and consumer staples, all sectors were in the green, led by materials and energy.

Officials from the Trump administration are holding trade talks with representatives from China in London.

Last week, US President Donald Trump said that he held a phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Previously, the two countries accused each other of violating their preliminary trade deal.

US Treasury yields were lower intraday Monday, with the two-year rate falling five basis points to 4% and the 10-year rate losing four basis points to 4.47%.

A Bloomberg-polled consensus indicates monthly growth remaining unchanged at 0.2%, with the annual metric rising to 2.5% from 2.3%.

"We think May is the starting point of a sequence of increasingly strong core inflation prints," Morgan Stanley said in a note emailed Monday. "We forecast the tariff push will peak in (the third quarter) and start to fade in (the fourth quarter)."

The official producer prices report for May is scheduled to be released Thursday.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up 0.6% at $64.96 a barrel intraday Monday. "Oil prices were stable as investors hoped that a potential deal in London could boost the global economic outlook and subsequently fuel demand," D.A. Davidson said in a note.

S&P 500 companies' latest quarterly results showed that earnings growth accelerated slightly compared with data from about a week ago, as the reporting cycle came to a close, Oppenheimer Asset Management said Monday.

The latest results are based on financials reported by 498 firms in the benchmark equity index, showing earnings growth of 12.7% from a year earlier. The brokerage's report released last Monday showed annual growth of 12.5%, based on financials posted by 491 companies. Ahead of the reporting season, Bloomberg's bottom-up estimates put analysts' projected earnings growth at 6.8%, according to Oppenheimer.

Baker Hughes ( BKR ) said it will sell its precision sensors and instrumentation product line to Crane (CR) for $1.15 billion as part of its efforts to optimize its portfolio for better returns. Crane shares were up 4.6%, while Baker Hughes ( BKR ) rose 1.5%.

Edison International ( EIX ) shares were down 7.8%, the steepest decline on the S&P 500, as Wolfe Research downgraded its rating on the stock to peer perform from outperform.

PG&E ( PCG ) followed Edison on the S&P 500, down 5.8%, as Wolfe Research cut its price target on the stock to $19 from $22.

Gold was up 0.3% at $3,354.3 per troy ounce, while silver rose 1.8% to $36.78 per ounce.