U.S. stocks pared losses Monday on unconfirmed reports that U.S. President Donald Trump is considering pausing his sweeping trade tariffs, after a very weak start to the new week on Wall Street.

At 10:25 ET (14:25 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 610 points, or 1.5%, the S&P 500 index fell 33 points, or 0.7%, while the NASDAQ Composite gained 20 points, or 0.1%.

Trump to pause tariffs?
A degree of optimism has gripped Wall Street following an unconfirmed rumor on social media indicating that Trump was considering a 90-day pause to his sweeping tariffs regime for all countries, with the exception of China.