Battered US stocks begin week higher, S&P 500 gains 0.9%

Wall Street stocks bounced early Monday, boosted by hints the United States could end some tariffs on China and by bargain-hunting after the big pullback this year.

Appearing in Tokyo for the launch of a new Asia-Pacific trade initiative, US President Joe Biden said he was considering remove some of the punitive import duties enacted by former president Donald Trump on China.

Analysts also pointed to positive market sentiment after stocks rallied on Friday after the S&P 500 briefly dipped into a "bear market" -- defined as a drop of more than 20 percent from a market peak.

About 25 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.1 percent at 31,619.50.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.9 percent to 3,937.92, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.7 percent to 11,429.00.

Among individual companies, VMware jumped 18.4 percent following reports it is in talks to be acquired by Broadcom. Broadcom fell 4.7 percent.