The prospects of new trade deals and a promising start to corporate earnings season helped lift stocks to record highs. 

Stocks opened lower on Thursday after President Trump unveiled a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, citing legal action against its former President Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. tech firms as justification for the levies. But by midafternoon the major indexes had turned higher, driven in part by the president’s latest Truth Social post urging the Federal Reserve to “RAPIDLY LOWER RATE TO REFLECT THIS STRENGTH.”