Trade war no worry for stocks

Technology beat the trade war, for a day at least.

U.S. stocks rose in light trading Friday as biotech shares drove gains following a report that Biogen Inc.’s Alzheimer’s drug showed positive results in a large clinical trial. The dollar extended losses and Treasuries climbed as investors assessed a mixed jobs report and the impact of an escalating trade rift with China.

All major U.S. equity benchmarks were higher. The S&P 500 Index rose, clinching its biggest weekly increase in a month, following the release of the employment report, which showed U.S. hiring topped forecasts in June. Nasdaq gauges jumped by more than 1 percent with biotech firms, chipmakers and software and tech hardware companies leading the way.

Volume was soft, with trading in S&P 500 stocks 23 percent below normal and Dow Jones Industrial Average shares 32 percent off their daily average. The dollar was lower and Treasuries rose as traders tried to determine how the Federal Reserve will react to the jobs report showing wage increases slowing.

“In many respects, it’s the best of a lot of worlds,” David Ader, chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence, said of the jobs report. “You’re not seeing inflation in this number. This doesn’t change anything for the Fed, and that I think is very, very important.”

Global stocks had been under pressure after China said it was retaliating over U.S. tariffs and President Donald Trump threatened to impose levies on even more Chinese goods. The escalating tit-for-tat is stoking market fears that the world economy could become destabilized amid a trade war that isn’t set to end anytime soon. For example, billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates, tweeted, “Today is the first day of the war with China.”

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past couple of years, it’s that politics hasn’t been rattling the markets,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. “But it’s the next phase, when it shows up in things people buy on a day-to-day basis — that’s when it starts to get nasty.”