US close: Stocks close lower as trade tensions and Italian instability weigh on sentiment
US stocks closed lower on Friday, with renewed trade fears and political woes in Italy weighing on global investor sentiment.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.34% at 26,287.44, while the S&P 500 was 0.66% weaker at 2,918.65 and the Nasdaq Composite closed 1.00% softer at 7,959.14.
The Dow closed 90.75 points lower after stocks finished noticeably higher on Thursday, bringing traders some sense of relief after the rollercoaster trading conditions seen during the previous session.
However, lenders' shares were dragging markets lower in Europe on Friday afternoon as Italian banks tumbled on political uncertainty.
Italy's coalition government imploded on Thursday evening, with deputy prime minister and leader of the nation's ruling Lega party, Matteo Salvini, labelling the arrangement unworkable before calling for fresh general elections that analysts said might possibly take place as early as October.
Back in the US, Bloomberg revealed overnight that Washington was holding out on granting US companies permission to use Huawei products, shortly after Beijing said it would stop buying American crops.
Trump said on Friday he was not willing to strike an agreement with China just yet, adding the US held "all the cards" in the negotiations.
Market participants were also likely to keep a close eye on the Treasury yield curve, with recent moves threatening to send 10-year rates below those on 2-year notes - resulting in a so-called inversion as had preceded every recession over the past 40 years.
Chip stocks slid as the ongoing trade war returned to focus, with the likes of Micron Technology and Skyworks Solutions trading lower at the end of the session.
Elsewhere in corporate news, Tribune Media turned in second-quarter profits that topped expectations; however, revenues fell short of estimates on the back of a decline in political advertising revenues.
On the data front, wholesale inflation in the US was little changed in July at the headline level, but underneath the surface price pressures were falling back.
According to the Department of Labor, the so-called final demand producer price index advanced at a 0.2% month-on-month pace in July, keeping the year-on-year rate of change at 1.7%, which was the same level as in June.
That was exactly as anticipated by economists, although the year-on-year rate of increase for June was revised higher from 1.8% to 2.1%.