New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange kicked off Thanksgiving week on Monday, setting new records with renewed hope for talks between Washington and Beijing and a spate of large-scale M & A deals.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, gained 0.68% to finish at 28,066.47 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological color, appreciated by 1.32% to finish at 8,632.49 points and the expanded index S & P 500 took 0.75% to 3,133.64 points.

This flight to unprecedented levels early in the session was quickly hailed by a tweet from US President Donald Trump who observed: "Another record in the stock market.

The big Wall Street indexes had paused in their race to the heights last week while there were contradictory messages on the commercial front.

But Monday, investors were reassured by encouraging comments from Chinese officials, ensuring that a partial agreement called "phase 1" could be reached by the end of the year.

The Chinese officials "also said that a + 2+ phase agreement is not imminent, but the bottom line is that we are getting closer to a partial agreement," said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.

Another positive sign, Beijing pledged to increase the sanctions against Chinese companies that would be guilty of theft of intellectual property, a sensitive topic in the discussions between the two largest economies.

- LVMH seizes Tiffany -

Wall Street brokers were also encouraged on Monday by announcements of several buyback deals.

This accumulation "reflects the idea that big companies have a positive appreciation of the economic situation, otherwise they would not expand," Cardillo said.

The largest deal was Charles Schwab (+ 2.32%), one of the pioneers of online brokerage, who put on the table $ 26 billion in shares to acquire his rival TD Ameritrade (+ 7.58%).

The world leader in luxury LVMH has, he, crunched the famous jeweler Tiffany (+ 6.18%) for $ 16.2 billion, a record acquisition for the group of Bernard Arnault.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced Sunday the acquisition of the US group Medecines Co (+ 22.25%) for some $ 9.7 billion.

The eBay online trading platform (+ 2.08%) will for its part sell the resale site of sports tickets and StubHub events and shows to Viagogo, for $ 4.05 billion in cash.

In the bond market, the 10-year rate of US debt was moving at 21.25 GMT to 1.755% against 1.771% at the close on Friday.

Among the other values ​​of the day, Tesla rose 0.99% while his boss, Elon Musk, said he has already recorded 200,000 pre-orders for his future futuristic electric pickup.

Uber, whose license was suspended by London because of loopholes in its computer system allowing thousands of unlicensed drivers to fraudulently take over passengers, fell by 1.52%. Its main competitor Lyft gained 5.34%.

Disney gained 0.94% while Frozen 2 "won the North American box office, pocketing $ 127 million in revenue for its first weekend in North American theaters, according to Provisional figures released Sunday by the specialized company Exhibitor Relations.

General Electric (+ 0.26%) announced the arrival at the beginning of 2020 as chief financial officer of Carolina Dybeck Happe, currently with the logistics group Moller-Maersk.

Facebook, which launched Monday an application offering to pay users who agree to participate in missions, surveys and studies, called Viewpoints, took 0.49%.

© 2019 AFP