NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street stocks retreated on Friday (Aug 9) on worries about the grinding US-China trade war amid rising gloom over the global growth outlook.

Major US indices stumbled after US President Donald Trump said he might cancel trade talks with China scheduled for September and that the US would not do business with Chinese tech company Huawei.

Trump's hardline stance on trade came amid a stream of mostly downcast economic data from overseas economy, including poor British and Chinese data Friday.

"The trade back and forth between the US and China is huge on the market," said FTN Financial's Chris Low, who also cited heightened recession risk as a drag on stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 26,287.44, down 0.3 per cent.

The broad-based S&P 500 slid 0.7 per cent to 2,918.66, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 1 per cent to 7,959.14.

Equities have fallen much of August due to the latest escalations in the trade conflict between Washington and Beijing and as Treasury bond yields have gyrated with investors anxious about slowing global growth.

US stocks rallied on Thursday from recent lows, but Friday's session meant all three indices finished with weekly losses.

Uber plunged 6.8 per cent after it reported a bigger-than-expected US$5.2 billion (S$7.2 billion) loss in the second quarter, exacerbating worries about the ride-hailing company's long-term path to profitability.

Mattel tumbled 15.8 per cent after the toy company abruptly canceled a debt offering to raise US$250 million, saying it received "an anonymous whistleblower letter" that it needed to investigate.

Symantec gained 0.3 per cent after officially announcing a deal to be bought by Broadcom for US$10.7 billion, while Broadcom gained 1.8 per cent. Symantec had risen 12.2 per cent Thursday ahead of the announcement.