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Stocks on Wall Street fell Friday morning after Chinese state media indicated Beijing was not eager to resume trade talks following Trump administration’s move to raise tariffs on Chinese imports and to target tech giant Huawei.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 160 points, or 0.6% to 25,712, while the S&P 500 index lost 17.52 points, or 0.6%, to 2,859. The Nasdaq Composite Index meanwhile, declined 58 points, or 0.7% to 7,841.
A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce called the Trump administration’s moves to raise tariffs last week, and the threat of additional tariffs on the roughly $300 billion in annually imported Chinese so far untouched by new duties, “bullying behavior,” that has resulted in “severe negotiating setbacks.”
Chinese state media also took aim at the Trump administration’s decision to put Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. on a list of entities that are working contrary to U.S. interests, which could result in U.S. companies needed to secure special permits to sell the company chips it relies on for end products.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. shares rose 1.6%, after the company announced a deal to buy supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc. for $1.3 billion.
Semiconductor firm Nvidia Corp. rose 0.9%, after it reported earnings Thursday evening that beat severely lowered expectations for the first quarter. Nvidia, however, declined to reiterate a fully year forecast while indicating that demand for the data-center market remains week.
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index in May climbed to a reading of 102.4, a 15-year high, from April’s reading of 97.2. Economists expected a reading of 97.1.
Brent crude was up 4 cents at $72.66 a barrel.
