S&P 500 is flat as it wraps up big week of gains: Live updates

The S&P 500 was unchanged on Friday following a three-day winning streak on Wall Street as investors weigh earnings from a major tech company and lingering trade fears.

The broad market benchmark was last trading marginally higher, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged behind with a loss of 171 points, or 0.4%.

Alphabet jumped 2% after the Google-parent and “Magnificent Seven” name reported a beat on the top and the bottom line for the first quarter. By contrast, Intel fell 7% after offering disappointing guidance and revealing that it plans to slash operational and capital expenses.

The confusing messages on trade progress continued on Friday, weighing on sentiment. Trump told reporters from Air Force One that he wouldn’t drop tariffs on China unless “they give us something.”

Sentiment was further hurt after comments from President Donald Trump were published by Time magazine. The president said he would consider it a “total victory” if the U.S. has high tariffs of 20% to 50% on foreign countries a year from now. Trump also denied that rising yields forced his hand in granting a 90-day pause on most of the higher tariff rates.

To be sure, the president also said announcements of many trade deals would be coming “over the next three to four weeks.”

“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t,” said Trump in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday.

The moves come after what has been a solid weekly performance for the market. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up 3.8% and 5.4% this week, respectively. The Dow has climbed 2%.

But stocks have been in a wide trading range following the initial shock of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs announcement on April 2 as investors await clarity on negotiations with key trading partners such as China. That country revealed Thursday that there were no ongoing discussions on tariffs.

That followed the White House signaling earlier this week that it may ease its stance on China tariffs, which sit at a total of 145% on imports from the country. On Tuesday, Trump said that the tariff rate will “come down substantially. But it won’t be zero.“

Still, going forward Jay Hatfield, founder and CIO of InfraCap, is optimistic that the worst of the tariff-induced uncertainty is over.

“The confusion about whether there’s really talks going on with China or not took some steam out of the market,” he told CNBC in an interview. “Our view is that we’ve reached peak tariff tantrum and so it’s likely to be more positive than negative.”

Hatfield believes that the key driver for markets next week will be earnings from big hyperscaler firms such as Microsoft and Amazon.