US STOCKS-Wall St set to open higher after heavy losses on hopes of tariff talks

By Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal

April 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Tuesday after a bruising selloff that has wiped out trillions of dollars since last week, as investors await any sign of the U.S. opening up for negotiations over some of the aggressive tariffs.

Most megacap and growth stocks rose in premarket trading, with Nvidia NVDA.O adding 4.5%, and Amazon.com AMZN.O and Tesla TSLA.O rising close to 4% each.

Since the reciprocal tariff announcement on April 2, concerns over a global trade war and fears of a recession in the U.S. have gripped Wall Street, with the three major indexes hitting around one-year lows.

The Nasdaq .IXIC confirmed a bear market on Friday, while the S&P 500 and the Dow .DJI are down more than 15% from their record-high closes. The benchmark index neared bear market territory on Monday, before cutting some losses.

"A bounce was inevitable at some stage... the reason is we've had a very rapid fall and that equity investors are still hoping that representations from countries will attempt to try and strike a trade accord with America," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

Markets continued to remain under a cloud of uncertainty after China said on Tuesday it will never accept the "blackmail nature" of the U.S. to Trump's threat to ratchet up tariffs on imports from China to more than 100%.

This was in response to China's decision to impose retaliatory tariffs to match 'reciprocal' U.S. duties.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview to CNBC on Tuesday tariff negotiations are the result of calls from other countries, not sliding financial markets, and China's escalation is a big mistake.

President Trump will be personally involved in trade negotiations, Bessent said.

At 08:13 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 1,201 points, or 3.15%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 148 points, or 2.9%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 488 points, or 2.78%.

Worries that the aggressive U.S. tariffs could spur inflation and hamper global growth have led to greater pricing of interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

Traders see more than 96 basis points of easing by the December, implying three fully priced in 25-bps cuts and a 84% chance of a fourth such a reduction, according to LSEG data.

A consumer price inflation reading is also due on Thursday, which could offer more clues on the inflation trajectory.

The CBOE Volatility index .VIX - seen as Wall Street's 'fear gauge' - retreated to 39.78 points after rising to more than 60 on Monday - levels last seen back in August.

Among individual stocks, chipmaker Broadcom AVGO.O advanced 7.4% after the company said it was launching a new share buyback program of up to $10 billion.

Health insurer UnitedHealth Group UNH.N gained 7.4% after the U.S. announced 5.06% increase in payment rates to private insurers for 2026 Medicare Advantage health plans.

Humana HUM.N soared 14.8%, while Elevance Health ELV.N also gained 8.1%. CVS Health CVS.N jumped 9.4%. The insurer named UPS executive Brian Newman as its chief financial officer.