U.S. equity indexes closed higher Monday, with Nasdaq leading the way, as China decided to increase penalties on intellectual property theft, a major sticking point of trade talks with the United States. China also said it would consider lowering the thresholds for criminal punishments for individuals and entities that steal intellectual property.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 190.85 points to 28,066.47 while the S&P 500 was up 23.35 points to 3,133.64 and the Nasdaq Composite Index surged 112.60 points to 8,632.49.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 2.91 billion shares with 2,158 issues advancing, 134 setting new highs, and 794 declining, with 19 setting new lows.

Active movers were led by Medicines Co. (MDCO), General Electric Co. (GE) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)

“The markets are pretty much priced for a [U.S.-China] deal to go ahead, and that may be the case, but we may see that pushed out to 2020,” Eleanor Creagh, market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets, told Bloomberg TV. “The key sticking point is really going to be the rolling back of tariffs.”

On Saturday Robert O’Brien, the U.S. national security adviser, told reporters at a security conference that a phase one agreement between the U.S. and China remained possible by the end of the year.

With respect to intellectual property, David Madden, market analyst at CMC, wrote: “The Chinese government have typically offered to purchase more agricultural goods from the U.S., but that will only gain a limited amount of traction with the Trump administration, but genuine progress regarding [intellectual property] could help get phase one wrapped up.”

Equities also received a boost from a flurry of merger deals.

Charles Schwab (SCHW) agreed to acquire TD Ameritrade Holding (AMTD) in an all-stock deal valued at $26 billion. The combined company will have more than $5 trillion in client assets.

Ebay (EBAY) agreed to sell StubHub to ticket marketplace Viagogo for $4.05 billion in cash. “We concluded that this was the best path forward for both eBay and StubHub," said Scott Schenkel, eBay's interim CEO.

Novartis (NVS) agreed buy cholesterol-drug maker the Medicines Co. (MDCO) for $9.7 billion, including outstanding stock options and convertible debt. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton reached an agreement to buy Tiffany & Co. (TIF) for $16.2 billion.

On the bad news front: Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) was denied a new license to operate in London.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index slowed to -0.71 in October, versus consensus forecast of -0.2.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was to speak tonight at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce annual dinner in Providence, Rhode Island.

Overnight, Asian markets closed broadly higher with the Hang Seng surging 1.5% while Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.78% and China's Shanghai Composite added 0.72%.

European markets closed higher led by the FTSE 100 which gained 0.95% while Germany's DAX rose 0.63% and France's CAC 40 climbed 0.54%.

Crude oil futures gained 0.36% to $57.98 per barrel and Brent crude edged up 0.05% at $62.65. Gold futures were down 0.59%.

The euro was down 0.1% to $1.101 while the pound sterling gained 0.41% to $1.2885.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped 0.56% to 1.764% while yield on the 30-year Treasury fell 0.72% to 2.207%.

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