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After nearly two years of tit-for-tat trade battles rattling the market, the phase-one trade deal the U.S. and China signed Wednesday could offer investors a reprieve from tariff tensions. That is a welcome development, but most strategists and investors were less effusive about the interim deal than U.S. officials, who characterized it as a “landmark” pact and a “sea change” for global trade.

In the much-anticipated interim deal, first announced in December, China agreed to buy roughly $200 billion in U.S. goods and services over two years. The target includes calls for China to increase its purchases above 2017 levels, by roughly $78 billion in manufacturing and by an extra $32 billion of agriculture goods.

China also agreed to improve intellectual property protections, open up its financial-services sector, and remove caps for foreign ownership. Furthermore, it agreed to strengthen protections against trade-secret theft and strengthened penalties for those who do, and agreed to several provisions to prevent it from forcing U.S. companies to hand over their technology to do business in the country.

The U.S., for its part, agreed to cut tariffs on $120 billion in Chinese goods by half to 7.5% and not impose other planned tariffs. However, tariffs on roughly $360 billion in goods still are in place as part of an enforcement mechanism, and many of the thorniest issues at the heart of the trade war—and needed to create a more level playing field—have been pushed to the second phase of negotiations.

Here’s how six Wall Street pros reacted to the deal.

Mona Mahajan, U.S. investment strategist at Allianz Global Investors, found a reason for at least a smidgen of optimism in the deal’s impact on business confidence and spending. “The backdrop has improved on the margin: While tariffs may not be lowered from these levels in the near-term, we will likely not see an increase as well. This provides a somewhat more stable operating environment for corporations heading into 2020,” Mahajan told Barron’s in an email.

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Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen, which oversees $1 trillion in assets, describes the deal as a “modest positive” but notes that the market had already baked in the benefit. “It takes trade and puts it on the back-burner,” said Doll, who adds it could give companies some confidence to begin spending on some hiring or investments. “It is like a detente. They agree on a few things and push the rest out.”

The U.S. and China are likely to continue to butt heads over technology, whether through export restrictions—like those placed last year on Huawei Technologies—or other measures. But Doll said those developments are likely to have more of a sector- and company-oriented impact further down the road—and not present the type of elevated risk for the broad market that tariffs did. Now that trade is out of the spotlight, what moves to the front-burner for markets? Earnings season, he said.

Anik Sen, global head of equities at PineBridge Investments, which oversees nearly $97 billion in assets, said the deal set into motion a process of de-escalation of bilateral trade hostilities, the most significant factor behind positive market sentiment.

For the longer term, Sen sees a more complicated backdrop for investors trying to figure out the future and position accordingly.“The biggest of all the new forces is China. And if China were to align with the U.S., the possibilities for global prosperity are tremendous,” Sen said via email. “The Phase I deal can be thus seen as the first milestone in this journey toward global prosperity.”

Andy Rothman, investment strategist at Matthews Asia, was warier, noting two serious concerns with the deal. “The targets for increases in China’s imports from the U.S. appear to be unrealistically high, which could set up the deal to fail, leading to additional tariffs or even a full-blown trade war,” he said.

Rothman’s other concern: U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer today acknowledged that “this deal will work if China wants it to work.” Rothman wonders if the Chinese government will want it to work if the Trump administration continues to pursue confrontational policies on almost every issue aside from this deal.

Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, writes in a note to clients that he is skeptical China will be able to make the roughly $200 billion in purchases it promised over two years, especially in terms of agricultural and manufactured-goods targets. An increase in auto imports, for example, would hurt Chinese producers already dealing with a slowing market.

But Williams notes the targets may not be that important. “As long as China places some large orders, the U.S. is likely to be satisfied for the next few months,” he writes. While the tariff stage of the trade war may be over if the deal holds, Williams cautions that the relationship won’t return to the way it was pre-trade war. Tariffs will stay high, and the slow-burn issues around the U. S-China relationship will persist. As for the economy, the phase-one deal could lift China’s gross domestic product by 0.1 percentage point with the reduction in the September tranche of tariffs.

Rory Green, economist at TS Lombard, said China was always happy to give ground on the trade deficit, intellectual property, and foreign exchange—major components of the deal. Chinese media was characterizing the pact as an “equal deal,” noting the foreign inflows that will now come into China. “China equities are set to rally higher as the sentiment of the Party and wider populace improves, the economy continues to stabilize, and stimulus starts to come through,” Green added.

The iShares MSCI China exchange-traded fund (ticker: MCHI) closed down 0.4% Wednesday at $66.74, compared with the S&P 500, which closed up 0.2%, at a record 3289.29.

Write to Reshma Kapadia at reshma.kapadia@barrons.com