Investing.com - Wall Street fell on Friday as a well-flagged increase in U.S. tariffs on China did little to change this week’s bearish sentiment.
The Dow Jones lost 64 points, or 0.3%, to 25,764.63 points by 9:43 AM ET (13:43 GMT), while the S&P 500 fell 7 points, or 0.3%, 2,863.38 points and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded down 17 points, or 0.2%, 7,893.94 points.
The lack of any immediate detailed response from China, despite the promise of retaliation, appears to have protected a fragile peace in many markets, which have rebounded from oversold levels in both Asia and Europe, but which are still set for their worst week this year.
But Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, warned that expecting to hear the details may be a mistake.
“This is not always how China plays its hand. Sometimes, it skips the American-style big announcement and simply takes action, as it has with Canada recently and Japan in the past, for example,” he said in a note.
Optimism overseas has been supported by the knowledge that talks are continuing in Washington Friday, despite the latest developments.
The U.S. has also decided not to apply the increase to goods already on their way, providing a window of opportunity for Trump to backtrack if a deal is made.
Whether that optimism can be sustained is another question.
“The tariffs can be reversed. But until then, now the negotiations have a real cost that increases with every delay,” Dario Perkins, head of global macro research at TS Lombard in London, said on Twitter.
The day's big event will be the debut of Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER), which starts trading Friday after pricing its IPO at $45 a share, just above the bottom end of the expected range. The company sold more than $8 billion in stock at a valuation of just over $82 billion in the largest IPO since Alibaba 's (NYSE:BABA) four years ago.
Among the day’s big movers, Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) nearly 16% after announcing the surprise resignation of its CEO Greg Clark late on Thursday, while real estate site Zillow (NASDAQ:ZG) surged close to 6% after its first-quarter report surprised with a larger revenue contribution from its home-flipping business.
On the economic front, the consumer price index rose less than expected, but matched the Federal Reserve's target of an annual rate for the first time this year after three months of undershooting.
With Fed policymakers predicting no change in interest rates for the rest of the year while Trump clamors for cuts, the data was still no game changer, according to James Smith, developed markets economist at ING.
“The latest downside surprise on U.S. inflation won't help resolve market pessimism towards the Fed policy outlook. But with wage pressures continuing to build, we think a rate cut is much less likely than markets currently think,” he said in a note.
Outside of equities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against six rival currencies, fell 0.2% at 96.99 by 9:46 AM ET (13:46 GMT), while the yield on the 10-year Treasury was little changed at 2.46%.
In commodities, gold futures rose $1.35, or 0.1%, to $1,286.55 a troy ounce, while crude oil advanced 13 cents, or 0.2% at $61.83 a barrel.