Investing.com -- U.S. stocks steadied Friday on renewed tariffs uncertainty, while investors also assessed earnings from Google-owner Alphabet among other major companies.
At 09:35 ET (13:35 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 30 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 index climbed 5 points, or 0.1%, and the NASDAQ Composite gained 45 points, or 0.3%.
The main Wall Street indices are on course for a positive week, having posted a three-day winning streak, with the S&P 500 recorded a week-to-date gain of nearly 4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 2% and the NASDAQ Composite more than 5% higher.
Trump hints at high tariffs remaining
However, U.S. equities were hit Friday following the publication of an interview with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Time magazine, in which 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.
Expectations that negotiations would bring down tariffs in the near future, particularly between the U.S. and China, had prompted something of a recovery in risk sentiment in the latter half of the week.
Sentiment had received a boost earlier in the session following a report that China is considering giving an exemption to some U.S. products to its steep retaliatory tariffs and is asking businesses to identify goods that could be eligible.
Citing a source close to the matter, Reuters said a taskforce from China’s Ministry of Commerce is putting together a list of items that might be exempted and asking companies to submit their own requests.
Investors had been encouraged by indications that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration may be softening its stance towards Beijing. Trump has made China a central target of his aggressive tariff agenda, raising levies on the world’s second-largest economy to at least 145%.
On the economic calendar, the final reading of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey is set to be released. The preliminary data showed that households had a deteriorating view of the economy and expected higher inflation due in large part to the global trade tensions.
Alphabet surges on strong earnings
Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) shares climbed strongly after the tech giant reported much stronger than expected earnings for the first quarter and announced a $70 billion buyback.
The company also reaffirmed its ambitious AI development plans, offering more confidence that AI-driven demand for chips and data centers will persist. The company is among Wall Street’s biggest spenders on AI.
Still, Alphabet did flag some potential headwinds from macroeconomic uncertainty, while growth in its ad business revenue, which is its biggest moneymaker, also shrank from the prior quarter .
Elsewhere, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC ) stock fell as weak guidance offset consensus-beating earnings, with the struggling chipmaker also flagging heightened concerns over macro headwinds from a trade war.
T-Mobile US (NASDAQ: TMUS ) stock dropped sharply after the telecommunications company added fewer wireless subscribers than expected in the first quarter, as rivals dialed up promotions in a saturating U.S. telecom market.
Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL ) stock edged higher after the consumer goods company slashed its full-year guidance for organic sales, becoming the latest company to cite possible headwinds from aggressive U.S. tariffs, although it still delivered better-than-anticipated first-quarter earnings.
The barrage of company earnings is set to continue in the coming weeks, including from tech giants Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), although the focus is likely to be more on guidance for the current year, especially in the face of heightened economic uncertainty.
Oil heads for weekly drop
Both the Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude contracts were set to decline around 3% this week after Reuters reported that several oil producing nations in the OPEC cartel are pushing to accelerate output hikes in June, extending May’s surprise boost, as internal disputes over quota compliance deepen.
OPEC and allies like Russia, a group known as OPEC+, will meet on May 5 to finalize their plans for June output levels.
(Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)