Weekly Market Recap May 18, 2019

China – U.S. trade talk continued to dominate the week.   A heavy selloff Monday was followed by 3 up days, with Friday moderately down.

On Monday, Chinese officials announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., hitting $60 billion in annual exports to China with new or expanded duties that could reach 25%.

Then on Wednesday:

The Trump administration plans to delay a decision on instituting new tariffs on car and auto part imports for up to six months, according to media reports.

Trump also called the most recent news “a little squabble”.

On the economic front, retail sales came in below par Wednesday.

Retail sales figures for April showed that U.S. retailers are seeing decelerating purchases for a second time in three months, declining 0.2% last month, compared with expectations for a 0.1% increase. Excluding autos, retail sales were flat for the month, versus expectations for 0.7% growth.

“The 0.2% [monthly] decline in retail sales in April was weaker than the consensus expectation of a small gain and supports our view that GDP growth is set to slow in the second quarter,” wrote Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics.

For the week, the S&P 500 fell 0.8% and the NASDAQ 1.3%.