US STOCKS-Wall Street ends up after swings on reopening hopes, weak data, trade woes

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* Five S&P indexes end in the red
* Russell 2000 index outperforms
* Philadelphia chip index slides on trade worries
* Indexes rise: Dow 0.25%, S&P 0.39%, Nasdaq 0.79%

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By Sinéad Carew
NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - Wall Street's three major
indexes closed higher after swinging between gains and losses on
Friday as investors weighed worries about Sino-U.S. trade
relations and weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data against
growing optimism that easing coronavirus restrictions would
boost activity this month.
Economic data painted a grim picture on Friday as U.S.
retail sales and manufacturing output showed record declines in
April due to virus-related stay-at-home orders. The data came after U.S. President Donald Trump ratcheted up
trade tensions with China by moving to block semiconductor
shipments to China's Huawei Technologies HWT.UL from global
chipmakers. The trade worries sent the Philadelphia
Semiconductor index .SOX down more than 2%.
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. The combination of trade tensions and weak data had sent S&P
500 down around 1.3% earlier in the session but for much of the
afternoon session it oscillated between positive and negative
territory.
"We got the Friday jitters on China trade but late this
afternoon the market turned its focus on reopenings," said John
Augustine, chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank
in Columbus, Ohio.
"We're smack in the middle of May and think this might be
the worst of the economic numbers. There's a chance they start
to slowly turn positive," said Augustine citing moves by most
states to at least partially reopen their economies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 60.08 points,
or 0.25%, to 23,685.42, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 11.2 points,
or 0.39%, to 2,863.7 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
70.84 points, or 0.79%, to 9,014.56.
However, for the week S&P 500 fell 2.3%, for its biggest
weekly drop since the week of March 20. The Dow dropped 2.7%
for the week while the Nasdaq declined 1.2%, marking their
biggest weekly drops since the week ended April 3.
Six of the 11 major S&P sectors closed higher, led by a 1.3%
gain in communications services .SPLRCL . Utilities .SPLRCU
was the weakest with a 1.4% drop followed by a 0.7% drop in
financial stocks .SPSY .
"Today has very much been about this battle of conflicting
factors," said Ed Perks, multi-asset solutions' chief investment
officer at Franklin Templeton, adding that without "something
that's going to give us direction" investors are viewing it as a
lackluster Friday after a long week.
The small-cap Russell 2000 .RUT outperformed, with a 1.6%
gain. One of its stocks, Sorrento Therapeutics Inc SRNE.O ,
closed 158% higher after its experimental antibody candidate
showed potential in blocking COVID-19 infections in early
studies. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.41-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.69-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted nine new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 51 new highs and 16 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.36 billion shares, compared
to the 11.39 billion average for the last 20 trading days.