Dow slumps 94 points, jeopardizing multiday rally as China trade tensions flare up
U.S. stock benchmarks Friday morning traded solidly lower, putting the thee main indexes on a path to book weekly losses and halt a three-session advance amid further investor concerns about trade relations between the U.S. and its international counterparts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded about 94 points, or 0.4%, lower at 25,772, the S&P 500 index declined 0.4% at 2,864, and the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.5% at 7,857, in early trade. For the week, the Dow was set for a weekly decline of 1%, the S&P 500 was poised for a weekly slide of 0.8%, while the Nasdaq was on track to fall 1%, according to FactSet data. Heightened trade tensions appeared evident in comments from state-controlled media, including the Communist Party’s People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency, which published scathing attacks on U.S. actions in recent days. “The U.S. has made an irrational act in trying to blackmail China with tariff hikes, which will be proven over time to be shortsighted and doomed to fail,” read an editorial in the Xinhua early Friday. Meanwhile, the British pound was under pressure against the dollar amid growing uncertainty about Britain’s plans to exit from Europe’s trading bloc. In corporate news, shares of Pinterest Inc. were looking at double-digit percentage losses, after the social-media company announced Thursday evening that its first-quarter losses of $41.4 million were three times as large as analysts had expected. Meanwhile, Chinese coffeehouse chain Luckin Coffee Inc. , a potential rival to Starbucks Corp. will list their shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday, after pricing its shares at $17, with a plan to sell 33 million shares.
Source : MTV
