Wall Street ends down amid more trade woes, high volatility

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Friday following renewed jitters over the U.S.-China trade war, capping a week of trading that saw big swings and high volume.

President Donald Trump said the United States and China were pursuing trade talks but he was not ready to make a deal, fanning fears over the impact of the trade war on the global economy.

Trump also said the United States would continue to refrain from doing business with Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies.

The week was marked by wild swings, but indexes finished nearly flat on the week. This week’s volume on U.S. exchanges was also the biggest weekly total of the year, exceeding 41 billion shares.

On Friday, all three indexes were down more than 1% in early trading and rebounded later in the session, with the Dow briefly turning positive at one point. This left a 315-point swing between the blue-chip index’s high and low of the day.

The frequent comments on trade are “leaving investors whipsawed,” said Rick Meckler, partner, Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.

“As volatility has picked up, you’ve gotten more interest on the part of traders, and that in turn has led to even higher volume,” he said. “When you get moves like this and reversals, it brings a lot of high-frequency traders in and short-term traders.”

Shares of chipmakers and other tariff-sensitive technology companies .SPLRCT fell, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX down 1.8%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 90.75 points, or 0.34%, to 26,287.44, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 19.44 points, or 0.66%, to 2,918.65 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 80.02 points, or 1%, to 7,959.14.

Shares of Amgen (AMGN.O) jumped 5.9% after news that a U.S. judge said patents relating to the Amgen’s blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel were valid, denying a challenge by Novartis AG (NOVN.S).

Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) shed 6.8% after the ride-hailing company reported a record $5.2 billion quarterly loss and revenue that fell short of Wall Street targets.

Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR.O) shares also plunged, a day after the drug developer flagged manufacturing issues with its experimental cancer drug bempeg.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.99-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.07-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 46 new 52-week highs and nine new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 56 new highs and 129 new lows.