Wall Street Up Despite China Worries, Poor Data

Wall Street's three major indexes closed higher after swinging between gains and losses on Friday as investors weighed worries about Sino-U.S. trade relations and weaker-than-expected US economic data against growing optimism that easing coronavirus restrictions would boost activity this month.

Economic data painted a grim picture on Friday as US retail sales and manufacturing output showed record declines in April due to virus-related stay-at-home orders.

The data came after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade tensions with China by moving to block semiconductor shipments to China's Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers. The trade worries sent the Philadelphia Semiconductor index down more than 2 percent.

China was swift to respond with a report saying it was ready to put US companies on an "unreliable entity list," according to the Global Times.

The combination of trade tensions and weak data had sent S&P 500 down around 1.3 percent earlier in the session but for much of the afternoon session it oscillated between positive and negative territory.

"We got the Friday jitters on China trade but late this afternoon the market turned its focus on reopenings," said John Augustine, chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio.

"We're smack in the middle of May and think this might be the worst of the economic numbers. There's a chance they start to slowly turn positive," said Augustine citing moves by most states to at least partially reopen their economies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.25 percent, to 23,685, the S&P 500 gained 0.39 per cent, to 2,864 and the Nasdaq added 0.79 percent, to 9,015. (Reuters)