Stocks rise; market volatile

Far bigger gains slip away as the market suffers a steep afternoon decline.

NEW YORK» U.S. stock indexes finished a bit higher Monday as investors let go of some of their fears about a possible trade war between the U.S. and China. But far bigger gains slipped away as the market suffered a steep afternoon decline.

Stocks climbed higher and higher in the first hours of trading, and at about 2 p.m. the Dow Jones in- dustrial average was up 440 points. That put the market on track to make up almost all of the ground it lost during a big sell-off Friday. But stocks have repeatedly changed course as investors tried to guess the outcome of the U.S.-China trade dispute, and they did it again Monday afternoon.

Health care companies finished with strong gains, and technology companies such as Microsoft and Apple regained some of their recent losses.

Banks rose along with interest rates. But industrial and retail companies finished with losses, and smaller companies fared worse than larger ones did.

“Every day the market wakes up and it struggles with whether it should pay attention to noise or pay attention to fundamentals,” said Marina Severinovsky, an investment strategist at Schroders. She said stocks have done well recently when investors can get their minds off the trade disputes because the global economy and the U.S. economy are still growing.

When companies start to report their first-quarter results this week, she added, the results are likely to be good.

Investors don’t know how the trade dispute might evolve and what it might mean for the global economy. While President Donald Trump continued to bash America’s trade deals on Twitter on Monday, he said the U.S. and China could settle their dispute. But things looked worse at the end of last week, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods. China has pledged to “counterattack with great strength” if Trump decides to follow through on that threat. The two nations had already proposed $50 billion in tariffs on imports, but none of that has taken effect yet.

“We don’t have a trade war,” said Severinovsky, of Schroders. “We have potential suggestions of things that could happen.”