Stocks erase a loss as China fears fizzle

Stocks closed out a solid week on Wall Street on Friday with a late-afternoon rebound after worries that President Donald Trump would reignite a costly trade war with China faded.

The benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.5 percent, recovering from a 1 percent slide, after Trump outlined several actions in response to a move by China to exert more control over Hong Kong but steered clear of upending a trade pact struck with Beijing earlier this year. The S&P 500 ended the month 4.5 percent higher, its second monthly gain in a row.

The world’s two largest economies agreed to a Phase 1 trade deal in January after more than a year of talks and billions of dollars in tariffs imposed on each other’s imports. Worries that the Trump administration would pull out of the deal with the world’s secondlargest economy weighed on the market for much of the day, until the president’s mid-afternoon statement.

“Much ado about nothing,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, said of the remarks. “The immediate concern, meaning the cessation of the Phase 1 (trade) accord, did not end up being put on the table, much to traders’ relief.”

Technology and health care stocks accounted for much of the market’s gains. That helped offset losses in banks, industrial companies and elsewhere. Bond yields fell and gold prices rose, signs that investors remain cautious. Oil recovered from an early slide.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 14.58 points to 3,044.31. The index ended the week with a 3 percent gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 17.53 points, or 0.1 percent, to 25,383.11. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, gained 120.88 points, or 1.3 percent, to 9,489.87. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks gave up 6.64 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,394.04.

Stocks have now recouped most of their losses after the initial economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic knocked the market into a breathtaking skid in February and March, though the S&P 500 is still down 10 percent from its all-time high in February.