Persisting trade worries send Wall Street lower

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - The benchmark S&P 500 index fell for a third straight day on Friday (Feb 8) as scepticism over the United States and China reaching a trade deal before a looming deadline added to concerns over slowing global growth.

President Donald Trump on Thursday fanned worries when he said he did not plan to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping before the March 1 deadline set for reaching an agreement.

However, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will travel to Beijing for principal-level meetings on Feb 14-15, a statement from the White House said.

As the session wore on, Wall Street's major indexes regained lost ground, with the Nasdaq little changed. Even so, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average remained firmly in negative territory as investors took profits from recently high-flying stocks.

Shares of S&P 500 energy companies, one of the top-performing sectors so far this year, were down 1.2 per cent. Financial shares, also strong performers of late, were the biggest drag among the S&P 500's major sectors, dropping 0.8 per cent as US 10-year Treasury yields fell.

"Right now, the focus really is on China," said Mark Otto, global markets commentator for GTS in New York. "The market doesn't like uncertainty, and it seems to be in abundance at this particular time. So the market's tone has gone from cautiously optimistic to speculative."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 151.29 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 25,018.24, the S&P 500 lost 6.2 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 2,699.85 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.66 points, or 0.04 per cent, to 7,285.70.

Global growth fears resurfaced on Thursday after the European Union cut its economic growth forecast and the Bank of England warned that Britain faced its weakest economic growth in a decade.

The US corporate earnings outlook has also taken a negative turn. Analysts now expect current-quarter profit to dip 0.1 per cent from the year before, not grow the 5.3 per cent estimated at the start of the year.

Still, the S&P 500 has risen more than 14 per cent from 20-month lows in December, spurred by a dovish Federal Reserve and largely positive fourth-quarter earnings.

Of the S&P 500 companies that have reported quarterly results, 71.5 per cent have beaten profit estimates, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Shares of Coty Inc surged 30.9 per cent - the most on the S&P 500 - after the cosmetics maker reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

Mattel Inc shares gained 21.6 per cent after the toymaker posted a surprise quarterly profit as it benefited from a makeover of its iconic Barbie doll.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.41-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.10-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 had 17 new 52-week highs and two new lows; the Nasdaq Composite had 30 new highs and 31 new lows.