US STOCKS-Wall Street mixed as strong consumer data dampened by trade jitters

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Pinterest plummets as 2019 forecast disappoints
* U.S. agrees to lift metal tariffs on Canada, Mexico
* Consumer sentiment hits highest in 15 years - UMich
* Luckin Coffee surges in market debut
* Dow up 0.9%, S&P off 0.9%, Nasdaq down 0.37%

(Updates to late afternoon, changes dateline, byline)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) - Wall Street struggled for gains
in an up-and-down session on Friday as mixed headlines on trade
dampened positive consumer sentiment data, sending investors
into the weekend with little enthusiasm.
The Dow inched up, while the Nasdaq lost ground and the
bellwether S&P 500 was nominally lower, hovering more than 2%
below its record high reached on April 30. All three were on
course for their second successive weekly declines after failing
to fully recover from Monday's steep sell-off.
China added fuel to the fire of the increasingly rancorous
trade war with the United States with a defiant front-page
commentary on the Communist Party's People's Daily, ratcheting
up tensions the day after U.S. President Donald Trump officially
blacklisted Chinese telecom Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from
doing business with U.S. companies. Elsewhere in the multi-front U.S. tariff war, Trump
confirmed he would delay imposing imported auto tariffs by as
much as six months, and agreed to lift metal tariffs on Canada
and Mexico. Consumer sentiment jumped 5.3% in May to its highest reading
in 15 years, according to the University of Michigan's consumer
sentiment index. However, "the gains were recorded mostly before
the trade negotiations with China collapsed and China responded
with their own tariff," the university said. "While the headlines are about trade the movement is more
about global growth than those headlines," said Oliver Pursche,
vice chairman and chief market strategist at Bruderman Asset
Management in New York.
Tariff jitters dragged on key industrial shares.
Farm equipment maker Deere & Co DE.N was the biggest
percentage loser on the S&P 500, dipping 6.4% after cutting its
full-year forecast.
Caterpillar Inc CAT.N , 3M Co MMM.N , Textron TXT.N ,
General Dynamics GD.N and Fedex Corp FDX.N all helped pull
the industrial sector .SPLRCI 0.5% lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 23.01 points,
or 0.09%, to 25,885.69, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.54 points, or
0.09%, to 2,873.78 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
28.94 points, or 0.37%, to 7,869.11.
Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, eight were trading
in the red, with energy .SPNY and industrials seeing the
largest percentage losses.
With 460 of S&P 500 companies having posted first-quarter
results, 75.2% of which beat analyst expectations, the mostly
upbeat first-quarter earnings season is nearly complete.
Analysts now expect first-quarter earnings growth of 1.4%, a
significant turnaround from the 2% loss expected on April 1.
Applied Materials Inc AMAT.O advanced 4.1% after the
company's better-than-expected quarterly profit eased concerns
about waning chip demand. Active wear company Under Armour Inc UAA.N gained 7.3%
following JP Morgan's upgrade of the stock to "overweight."
Pinterest Inc PINS.N slumped 11.5% after its first
quarterly earnings report as a publicly-traded company.

Shares of Luckin Coffee Inc LK.O jumped 24.6% as the
Chinese challenger to Starbucks Corp SBUX.O made its debut.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.91-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.76-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 29 new 52-week highs and 5 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 53 new highs and 87 new lows.