Updates with mid-afternoon US trading

By Abigail Summerville and Sukriti Gupta

Feb 4 (Reuters) - The three major stock indexes climbed on Tuesday, aided by energy stocks, while investors saw reason for optimism for a trade breakthrough between the U.S. and China after President Donald Trump delayed tariffs for Canada and Mexico.

New 10% U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports took effect on Tuesday, which China countered with levies on U.S. goods. It was unclear when the country's leaders would talk.

Six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors traded higher, with energy stocks .SPNY leading the gains with a 1.9% rise, paring earlier losses.

Trump had said over the weekend he would impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, but agreed to a 30-day pause on Monday, in return for border and crime concessions from both countries.

"The president was so quick to offer a 30-day stay of execution to Mexico and Canada, so you get the idea that maybe what he's really trying to do is embrace a quick declaration of victory which doesn’t change much from a trade perspective," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

"Investors have been breathing a sigh of relief today and we’ll see if a month from now they can continue to breathe that sigh of relief."

Alphabet GOOGL.O was up 1.8% ahead of its quarterly results, which are due after markets close, while Nvidia NVDA.O advanced 2.6%.

Palantir PLTR.O jumped 23.2% after the data analytics company forecast first-quarter and annual revenue above Wall Street estimates.

At 2:05 p.m. EST (1905 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 84.79 points, or 0.19%, to 44,506.70, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 36.26 points, or 0.60%, to 6,030.83 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 224.93 points, or 1.16%, to 19,616.88.

Biotechnology firm Illumina ILMN.O dropped 6%, while PVH Corp PVH.N, the holding company for brands including Calvin Klein, slipped 0.7% after China placed the companies on its "unreliable entity list".

Trump's delayed tariffs for Canada and Mexico helped the three major U.S. stock indexes pare some of the heavy losses suffered earlier on Monday and close trading well off session lows.

Three Federal Reserve officials warned on Monday that trade tariffs carried inflation risks, with one arguing that uncertainty over the outlook for prices called for slower interest-rate cuts than otherwise.

A Labor Department report showed U.S. job openings stood at 7.6 million in December, compared to an estimated 8 million, according to economists polled by Reuters.

In earnings-driven moves, PepsiCo PEP.O fell 4.5% after it forecast annual profit below expectations and missed quarterly revenue estimates.

Estee Lauder EL.N plummeted 14.8% after the cosmetics company posted another weak quarter amid demand weakness and announced job cuts.

Merck MRK.N dropped 10% after the drugmaker said it would pause shipments of Gardasil to China through at least mid-year, as continued weak demand for the HPV vaccine there is expected to hurt the company's 2025 revenues.

PayPal PYPL.O fell 11.9% after the digital payments giant's operating margin shrank in the fourth quarter.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.44-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange, and by a 2.06-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 26 new 52-week highs and 15 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 61 new highs and 109 new lows.

(Reporting by Abigail Summerville in New York and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Pooja Desai and Rod Nickel)

((Shashwat.Chauhan@thomsonreuters.com;))