Investing.com - Stocks ended the day lower as investors feared the latest round of trade talks between the U.S. and China are unlikely to settle the trade war between the world’s largest two economies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.54%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.30%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.41%. It was the third loss in four days for the Dow and sixth loss in seven days for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. But the close was a big improvement over an ugly slump earlier in the day. The Dow was down as many as 450 points during the session.
The U.S. and China are set to get trade talks underway at 5:00 PM ET (21:00 GMT), but market participants were seemingly wary of betting on a positive outcome, with analysts expecting Washington to move ahead with planned tariffs on Beijing at midnight.
“We continue to believe the tariff rate on the $200 billion tranche of tariffs is likely to officially increase to 25% at 12:01 AM ET Friday,” said Goldman Sachs, placing the odds at around 60%.
But the bank also touted some reason for optimism as it suggested that the U.S. tariff hike may have a lesser impact than many expect as exports that have already left Chinese ports before May 10 will not be subject to the increase.
The softer deadline leaves the door open for further trade talks in the coming weeks and differs from the 10% tariff the U.S. implemented in September, which didn't exclude goods that were already “in-transit,” Goldman added.
Moreover, President Trump cheered the market in a brief press opportunity, saying he still expects a trade deal to get done. The comment helped trim stock losses.
Trade-sensitive concerns of the market were seemingly unconvinced, with Boeing (NYSE:BA), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and 3M (NYSE:MMM), bellwethers of global trade, ending the day lower.
Tech stocks, meanwhile, were dragged lower by a slump in Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) as Wall Street turned negative on the chipmaker following its warning Wednesday of low-single-digit revenue growth for the next three years.
BMO downgraded Intel to market perform from outperform, warning that semiconductor stocks do not do well in a decelerating gross margin environment.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) also dragged tech into the red, falling 1.1%, after Bernstein indicated the iPhone maker may be sporting a frothy valuation with its shares trading at 17 times forward price-to-earnings.
Boeing, 3M, Intel and Apple combined to contribute 79 points to the Dow's loss.
But energy stocks eked out a gain as a rise in Chevron helped offset lower U.S. oil prices.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX) rose more than 4% after it pulled out of the running to acquire Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC), saying it would not submit a new offer to acquire the company. This came after Anadarko said the offer from rival oil company Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) was superior to Chevron's. Wall Street booed the potential deal, pushing Occidental down 6.4%.
On the earnings front, meanwhile, investors had to contend with mixed results that did little to improve sentiment on stocks.
Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), operator of a television streaming platform, reported a narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss, sending its shares more than 28% higher.
But Etsy tumbled 10.75% after the online crafts retailer reported first-quarter revenues that slightly missed Investing.com’s consensus estimates.
In other company news, Fox Corp (NASDAQ:FOX) ended the day 3% higher after after it invested hundreds of millions of dollars on a sports-betting platform that it hopes will diversify its revenue streams and expand the reach of the Fox Sports brand.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Tapestry (NYSE:TPR), Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) and Perrigo (NYSE:PRGO) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and CenturyLin (NYSE:CTL) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.