Investors patient as stocks take a dip

NEW YORK — Stocks ended a choppy week of trading with modest losses Friday as investors look forward to getting more clues about the direction of interest rates.

Technology shares drove the declines, and energy stocks also fell a day after leading the market. Some late-day gains in banks and insurers helped temper the market’s losses.

Investors dealt with fresh concerns about the impact on businesses of the U.S. trade dispute with China. The chipmaker Broadcom warned that demand for chips has slowed because of U.S. restrictions on sales to Chinese technology firms and hesitation among customers to place new orders. It shaved $2 billion from its annual revenue forecast.

Trading this week was uneven as investors swung between safeplay holdings and riskier bets. Stocks rose Monday but then seesawed as investors saw signs that the U.S. and China won’t settle their differences on trade anytime soon. There is concern that a protracted dispute could further hurt global economic growth and corporate profits. A suspected attack on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz added more uncertainty.

The S&P 500 index fell 4.66 points, or 0.2%, to 2,886.98 on Friday and ended the week with a slim gain of 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 17.16 points, or 0.1%, to 26,089.61. The Nasdaq composite slid 40.47 points, or 0.5%, to 7,796.66. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks dropped 13.31 points, or 0.9%, to 1,522.49.

The major indexes are still showing strong gains for June — the Dow is up 5.1% and the S&P 500 is up 4.9%. Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell set off a market rally after he signaled that the central bank is willing to cut interest rates to help stabilize the economy if the trade war between Washington and Beijing starts to slow economic growth.

The Fed holds its next meeting of policyholders next week. No action on rates is expected, but the futures market indicates that investors are almost certain the Fed will cut rates at its July meeting, so they’ll carefully parse a statement from the central bank and comments from Mr. Powell on Wednesday.

Economists Ethan Harris and Aditya Bhave of Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a note to clients that Fed officials probably haven’t decided yet whether to cut rates in July and won’t try to sway investors one way or another at next week’s meeting. They say that Mr. Powell will have to “tap dance” during his news conference and expect him to “keep options open with the possibility of a cut in July but not a pre-commitment.”

The economists expect Fed officials to wait until the second week of July to indicate whether they intend to cut rates after seeing the next government report on the jobs market and other economic data. They’ll also know the results of an important meeting of the G-20 in late June, where President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could meet and try to negotiate a deal on trade.

Mr. Harris and Mr. Bhave say the Fed is likely to cut rates in September.