US stocks add to last week's strong gains, easing trade tensions supportive

Major US equity indices opened higher on Monday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) aiming for its eighth straight session on gains. 

Easing tensions between the world's two largest economies helped the markets to keep up the bullish momentum at the start of a new trading week and build on last week's strong up-move of over 2%. 

The US President Donald Trump injected some fresh optimism ahead of tentative trade talks this week and announced over the weekend that he planned to help Chinese telecom giant, ZTE to get back to business. 

During the early hour of trade, the DJIA was up by over 100-points and inched back closer to the key 25K milestone. Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 Index added over 10-points to 2,738 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index climbed around 40-points to 7,442. 

In absence of any major market-moving economic reports scheduled on Monday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard's comments might influence market expectations over the pace of future Fed rate hikes and eventually influence demand for riskier assets - like equities.