Stocks cap wild week with stumble on trade-war worries

NEW YORK — Stocks stumbled on Wall Street Friday, veering between modest and sharp losses, as worries flashed yet again about President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. The declines bookend a wild week where markets zoomed down, up and down again as investors struggled to make sense of a trade dispute whose resolution suddenly seems much more uncertain.

The S&P 500 sank as much as 1.3% Friday afternoon after Trump said that it would be “fine” if a meeting on trade with China next month doesn’t happen, before eliminating most of the loss. Treasury yields jostled up and down, while the price of crude oil clawed back some of its sharp losses from earlier in the week. Gold, which jumped earlier in the week as investors rushed for things seen as safe, was steady.

To anyone not paying attention, the numbers could paint the last week as a ho-hum one for markets: The S&P 500 is down just 0.1%. But that stretch included the worst plunge of the year for the S&P 500, as well as its best day in months.

Through the week, investors’ mood pinballed from fear that China was raising the stakes in the trade war by weakening its currency to relief that the yuan’s drop wasn’t more sharp and back to concern that the U.S. and China may not even meet next month to talk about their problems. All of that was a follow-up to Trump’s threat last week to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods.

Underscoring the uncertainty, investors said they had no good explanations for some of the sharp swings in price that stocks had over the last week.

Even after all the tumult, the S&P 500 is only 1.7% below its record, which was set at the end of July. It’s also up about 9% since Trump said in March 2018 that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

The economy is still growing, and the unemployment rate remains near its lowest level in half a century. The fear is that all the uncertainty that has been causing stock prices to swing sharply could also make businesses and shoppers more cautious. If they pull back on their spending, it could lead to weaker profits for companies, which could cause businesses to cut back on hiring, which could do real damage to the economy.