Wall Street indexes fell on Friday at the end of a crazy week amid fears about the global economy.
The blue-chip index Dow Jones Industrial Average wiped out 0.34% of its value, ending at 26,287.44 points, after losing 280.55 points early in the session. The broad S&P 500 and the technological Nasdaq declined by 0.64% and 1% respectively. Earlier in the day, the Nasdaq fell by 1.6%.
The CBOE Volatility Index, which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was up 6.27% to 17.97.
Stocks generally experienced a volatile week, with the indexes registering their largest one-day sales of the year on Monday. The benchmarks managed to recover some of their losses on Tuesday. On Wednesday, stock sales resumed as investors turned to traditionally safer sovereign bonds and gold. By the end of Thursday's session, indicators had recovered most of their losses since the beginning of the week. Thus, on a weekly basis, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down by 0.1% each, while the blue-chip index Dow Jones is down by 0.3%.
Shares fell sharply early on Friday after Bloomberg reported that the US is delaying the authorization of local companies to do business with Huawei. This led to a fall in the stock of chip makers Micron Technology and Skyworks Solutions by more than 2%.
The US President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that the US is not ready to trade with China.
"China wants to do something, but it's still doing nothing. Twenty-five years of abuse. I'm not ready so quickly", said Donald Trump.
The US president told reporters Friday that the US will not do business with Huawei. However, Fox Business later announced that the White House had clarified Trump's statements to Huawei, saying only the US government would not buy the company's products.
All this happens in the context of an escalating trade war. China has decided to stop buying US agricultural goods after the US formally declared China a currency manipulator earlier this week. China has allowed its currency, the yuan, to reach its lowest level against the dollar in ten years, leading to the largest share sales in 2019.
Corporate stocks performance
Uber Technologies Inc shed 6.3% after the ride-hailing company reported a record 5.2 billion USD quarterly loss and revenue that fell short of Wall Street targets.
DXC Technology tumbled 31.3% after the IT and consulting services provider cut its full-year profit and revenue forecast.
Nektar Therapeutics shares plunged after the drug developer flagged manufacturing issues with its experimental cancer drug bempeg.
Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc ended 0.7% higher after its drug Biktarvy was approved for the treatment of HIV-1 in China, the company said Friday.
J.C. Penney Co received a delisting notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission because its shares have been trading below a threshold for an extended period. Shares of the company, at 60 cents, were down 13.5% in Friday action and have shed 42% thus far in 2019.
The stocks of McDonald’s Corp rose by 1.4%, to pace the Dow’s gainers on Friday. The fast-food behemoth’s stock was headed for a fourth-straight gain, and a third-straight record close.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.85-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.84-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
The top performers on the S&P 500 were Amgen Inc (+5.95%), News Corp B (+5.31%) and News Corp A (+5.14%), while on the flipside were DXC Technology Co (-30.49%), Nektar Therapeutics (-29.25%) and Kraft Heinz Co (-6.09%).
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://financeandmarkets.com/wall-street-stocks-fall-on-renewed-trade-war-fears/