Roundup: U.S. stocks extend losses amid market focus on global trade, mixed data

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NEW YORK, May 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks wrapped up the week on a downbeat note, as investors kept themselves informed of real-time updates regarding global trade, and digested a batch of mixed economic data.

In the week ending May 10, the Dow fell 2.13 percent, the S&P 500 was down 2.19 percent, and the Nasdaq lost 3.05 percent.

This week marked choppy trading sessions for the market with a low start yet a slightly high ending.

On Friday, the three major indexes ended slightly higher, cutting all their daily losses and closing out the week positively, as the market paid close attention to the development of global trade.

Friday began with a disappointing note yet turned to green in the tally around market close.

The Dow increased 0.44 percent to 25,942.37. The S&P 500 rose 0.37 percent to 2,881.40. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.08 percent to 7,916.94.

Notably, share of Uber fell over 7.6 percent, amid much market limelight to the first trading day of U.S. ride-sharing service provider, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

Uber priced its massive initial public offering at 45 U.S. dollars per share, the low end of its targeted range. If fully diluted, it will have a market valuation of 82.4 billion dollars.

Yet shares of Ford rose nearly 1.8 percent, after Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded the company's stock to "buy" from "neutral."

The bank said in a note that the automobile giant has started "a more sustainable inflection in earnings" propelled by a favorable product cadence and restructuring efforts.

Tuesday was a day for Wall Street to mourn, with the three major indexes running into deepening losses following Monday's declines, as traders and investors got spooked by a worsening prospect of global trade.

Around market close, the Dow fell 473.39 points, or 1.79 percent, to 25,965.09. The S&P 500 decreased 48.42 points, or 1.65 percent, to 2,884.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 159.53 points, or 1.96 percent, to 7,963.76.

Wall Street kicked off Tuesday with a dull start and the three major indexes extended solid losses throughout the day.

Their losses kept enlarging at a growing pace, with the Dow falling below the key level of 26,000 points by evaporating nearly 449 points around midday.

While the losses of the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both expanded by nearly four folds. As a consequence, the S&P 500 broke below its key level of 2,900 points, and the Nasdaq dived below the bar of 8,000 points.

Due to increasing volatility across the board, selloffs of the three indexes speeded up during afternoon sessions.

The Dow tumbled over 500 point in early afternoon and then sank deeper into the red territory after losing over 600 points. It even plunged as much as 648.77 points at its low of the trading day, marking the biggest fall since early January.

All of the 30 blue-chip stocks in the Dow were in red throughout Tuesday, led by Boeing and Caterpillar, whose shares dropped nearly 3.9 percent and nearly 2.3 percent respectively.

The two companies, widely seen as global trade bellwethers, hold high overseas revenue exposure.

The tech sector also continued to be pulled back primarily by chipmakers and semiconductor companies, both sensitive to global trade.

The Cboe Volatility index, widely considered the best fear gauge in the stock market, increased 25.13 percent to 19.32 on Tuesday, an alarming rebound from Monday's 19.97 percent decrease.

Monday witnessed the three major indexes recover most of their lost grounds after steep tumbles earlier in the morning.

The first two gloomy trading days of the week followed a mixed result on Wednesday's tally and a slight downfall on Thursday's readings, which held investors in anxiety over the U.S. equity market, which always reacts to global trade in a forward-looking way.

Meanwhile, Wall Street digested a set of key economic data this week.

On the economic front, U.S. consumer price index rose 0.3 percent in April, down from the 0.4 percent growth in March, said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

April's growth came as the gasoline index continued to pick up, rising 5.7 percent and accounting for over two-thirds of the all items monthly increase.

The energy index also rose, while the food index fell for the first month since June 2017.

U.S. jobless claims fell last week and unemployment rate was little changed in late April, said the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday.

In the week ending May 4, the number of people who applied for jobless benefits dropped to 228,000, a slight decrease of 2,000 from the previous week.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending April 27, unchanged from that of the previous week. Enditem

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