Stocks drop again on trade war worries

NEW YORK — Stocks stumbled Friday as worries flared again that President Donald Trump’s trade war with China may be worsening. It was a fitting end to a wild week where markets zoomed down, up and down again as investors recalibrated by the minute how much the tensions will hurt the global economy.

The S&P 500 dropped as much as 1.3 percent Friday after Trump said it would be “fine” if a meeting on trade with China next month doesn’t happen. But the S&P rebounded and nearly eliminated the loss. It dropped again in the final minutes of trading and ended the day at 2,918.65, down 19.44 points, or 0.7 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 90.75, or 0.3 percent, to 26,287.44, and the Nasdaq lost 80.02, or 1 percent, to close at 7,959.14.

Through the week, investors’ mood pinballed from fear that China was raising the stakes in the trade war by weakening its currency to relief that the yuan’s drop wasn’t more sharp and back to concern that the U.S. and China may not even meet next month to talk about their problems. All that followed Trump’s threat last week to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods.

Underscoring the uncertainty, investors said they had no good explanations for some of the sharp swings that stocks had over the past week.

“We don’t really see an end to the uncertainty anytime soon,” said Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Beyond the U.S.-China trade war, he pointed to the upcoming U.S. elections, the pending British exit from the European Union and a separate trade war between South Korea and Japan, among other things.

“Unfortunately, it’s tough to tell whether we’re at peak uncertainty, but the level of uncertainty is high. What’s remarkable is how close the markets still are to their all-time highs despite all the uncertainty.”

The S&P 500 is only 2.1 percent below its record, which was set at the end of July. It’s also up 9 percent since Trump said in March 2018 that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

In the commodities markets, benchmark U.S. crude jumped $1.96 to settle at $54.50 a barrel. It had dropped as low as $50.52 earlier in the week amid worries that a weaker global economy would dent demand for energy. Brent crude, the international standard, rose $1.15 to $58.53 per barrel.

Gold edged down $1.10 to $1,496.60 per ounce. It was a relatively quiet day after a roaring week in which gold hit its highest price in more than six years as investors scrambled for safety.