Stocks Notch Modest Gains as Traders Weigh Tariff Reprieve

US stocks eked out a small gain Thursday as Wall Street assessed a deluge of headlines around the legal ramifications of President Donald Trump’s trade policies against an upbeat earnings readout from Nvidia Corp.

The S&P 500 Index rose 0.4% in New York, with the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index up 0.2%, after both equity benchmarks pared a larger advance and temporarily flipped lower earlier in the session. The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, briefly spiked above 20 before retreating.