US STOCKS-Wall St edges higher with focus on President Trump's trade policy

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By Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta

Jan 21 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes edged up on Tuesday, as investors assessed President Donald Trump's executive orders after taking office, while awaiting his first move on trade policy.

Trump did not lay out any concrete plans on the universal tariffs and additional surcharges on close trade partners as previously promised, but said he was thinking about imposing duties on Canadian and Mexican goods as early as Feb. 1.

While investors remain cautious about Trump's tariff policies, which could spark a global trade war and fresh inflation pressures, brokerage Goldman Sachs lowered its forecast for a universal tariff this year to 25% from about 40% seen in December.

At 09:57 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 258.04 points, or 0.59%, to 43,745.87, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 26.73 points, or 0.45%, to 6,023.39 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 13.90 points, or 0.07%, to 19,644.10.

The domestically focused small-cap Russell 2000 index .RUT rose 1% to touch a one-month high.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors rose, with real estate .SPLRCR leading the gains with a 1.4% increase.

Apple AAPL.O slid 3.7% after brokerage Jefferies cut its rating on the iPhone maker to 'underperform'.

Automakers General Motors GM.N and Ford F.N, which are most sensitive to tariffs due to their vast supply chains, edged up 1.6% and 0.8%, respectively, while Elon Musk-led Tesla TSLA.O dropped 3.1%.

"It's impossible to know exactly what the Trump administration will do...in the past, tariff rhetoric turned into trade deals that turned into negotiating tactic and it was never universally applied. So, I think the market right now is taking a wait-and-see attitude towards that," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.

During the first year of Trump's first administration, the S&P 500 .SPX rose 19.4%, while the benchmark index rose nearly 68% through his first term, but saw bouts of volatility, stemming in part from a trade war Trump fought with China.

Last week, the S&P 500 and Dow registered their biggest weekly percentage gains since early November, helped by strong bank earnings and signs that underlying inflation was cooling.

However, inflation is still above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and fuelling worries that Trump's policies could delay the central bank's pace of monetary policy easing.

Economists see the Fed leaving borrowing costs unchanged when it meets next week and traders see the first interest rate cut coming in July, according to data compiled by LSEG.

3M MMM.N rose 4.5% after posting upbeat fourth-quarter profits. Charles Schwab SCHW.N rose 7% after the brokerage firm's profit rose 44% in the fourth quarter.

Walgreens WBA.O fell 12.3% after the Justice Department accused the pharmacy operator of filling unlawful prescriptions for addictive painkillers and other drugs.

Moderna MRNA.O rose 9.3% after securing $590 million from the U.S. to hasten development of its bird flu vaccine.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 4.14-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.15-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 32 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 78 new highs and 33 new lows.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com;))