The latest weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data on Thursday fed hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut U.S. interest rates this month, which helped lift global equities slightly after two days of declines, but investors also parked some funds in United States Treasuries and other safe-haven assets.

The drop in the closely watched Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing activity index boosted fears that the U.S.-China trade war could push the global economy into a recession.

“The degradation of the data, especially the nonmanufacturing data, kind of pushes that to the Fed doing another cut,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh. “This is very familiar to the post-2008 world where we get bad news and the market rallies because we are anticipating a rate cut.”

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.39 percent, following broad declines in Europe as investors priced in new U.S. tariffs that are set to be imposed on $7.5 billion of European goods.