Investing.com – Wall Street was mixed on Friday, as investors shook off trade war worry and concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump would veto the spending bill.
The S&P 500 was flat at 2,643.72 as of 9:45 AM ET (13:45 GMT) while the Dow composite increased 20 points or 0.09% to 23,978.44 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite fell 20 points or 0.28% to 7,146.44.
Stocks tumbled on Thursday as Trump announced tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports in retaliation for China’s unfair seizure of U.S. intellectual property.China promptly retaliated with plans to announce tariffs of its own against the U.S., rising concern among investors of a global trade war.
The Federal Reserve’s decision to hike the interest rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday and increase the pace of tightening has also left markets on edge.
Meanwhile Trump threatened to veto the $1.3 trillion spending bill that was passed last night because it does not provide funding for a border wall or deal with the 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. A veto would shut down the government at midnight.
Technology stocks struggled for direction after suffering losses the last two days. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was still under pressure from criticism for breaching data privacy after a third-party targeted 50 million users with political ads without their knowledge. Its shares were down 0.49%.
Meanwhile Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) lost 1.05% while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) inched down 0.44% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) decreased 0.36%.
Elsewhere Kroger (NYSE:KR) rose 1.60% amid reports that it could merge with Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) while Digital Power Corporation (NYSE:DPW) surged 5.59%.
In Europe stocks were mostly down. In Germany the DAX fell 144 points or 1.20% while France’s CAC 40 decreased 57 points or 1.12% and in London the FTSE 100 was down 24 points or 0.36%. Meanwhile Spain’s IBEX 35 slipped 93 points or 0.98% and the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 inched down 31 points or 0.94%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 1.45% to $1,346.70 a troy ounce while crude oil futures were up 1.09% to $65.00 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slumped 0.31% to 89.19.