US STOCKS-S&P swings as investors weigh weak data, trade woes with reopening optimism

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* Sorrento Therapeutics top gainer on Russell 2000 index
* Philadelphia chip index slides
* Indexes: Dow down 0.5%, S&P off 0.13%, Nasdaq up 0.12%

(Updates to late afternoon, adds commentary, NEW YORK dateline,
changes byline)
By Sinéad Carew
NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 zig-zagged on both
sides of unchanged on Friday as investors weighed worries about
Sino-U.S. trade relations and weaker-than-expected retail sales
data against optimism over the reopening of the U.S. economy
after coronavirus lockdowns.
Economic data painted a grim picture as U.S. retail sales and
manufacturing output showed record declines in April as the
virus' effects were felt in the second quarter. President Donald Trump said on Friday the U.S. government
would invest in all the top coronavirus vaccine candidates and
said a list had been narrowed to 14 promising possibilities with
a plan to narrow further.
Earlier in the day, the S&P 500 fell as much as 1.3% as
Trump moved to block semiconductor shipments to China's Huawei
Technologies HWT.UL from global chipmakers, ratcheting up
U.S.-China trade tensions.
China was swift to respond with a report saying it was ready
to put U.S. companies on an "unreliable entity list," according
to the Global Times. "It's the tug of war between the economic numbers being
worse than expected and progress on containing the disease being
reasonable. Reopening is proceeding with no negative surprises
so far. That lends credence to support an optimistic bias,"
Carol Schleif, deputy chief investment officer at Abbot Downing
in Minneapolis. "You can pull enough threads to support
whatever case you want to make."
Schleif saw the market going sideways from here without a
change in economic data and earnings: "We've rallied a lot from
the bottom, and we need some verification the economic numbers
will at least stabilize to justify the big move we've had."
At 2:38 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
fell 11.26 points, or 0.05%, to 23,614.08, the S&P 500 .SPX
lost 3.64 points, or 0.13%, to 2,848.86 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 10.30 points, or 0.12%, to 8,954.03.
The trade worries sent the Philadelphia Semiconductor index
.SOX down more than 2%. Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were
higher, led by a gain in energy .SPNY . Utilities .SPNY was
the weakest with a 2.5% drop.
Healthcare stocks were the biggest boost to the Nasdaq
.IXIC .
The small-cap Russell 2000 .RUT rose 1.7% and its top
percentage gainer was Sorrento Therapeutics Inc SRNE.O after
the company's experimental antibody candidate showed potential
in blocking COVID-19 infections in early studies. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.32-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.58-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted six new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 44 new highs and 15 new lows.