US STOCKS-Wall St clings to gains on trade hopes

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* Trump predicts swift end to trade war with China
* Foot Locker, Autodesk fall as quarterly profit disappoint
* Indexes up: Dow 0.45%, S&P 0.33%, Nasdaq 0.42%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Shreyashi Sanyal and Amy Caren Daniel
May 24 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks gained on Friday, ahead of a
long Memorial day weekend, after U.S. President Donald Trump
predicted a swift end to the ongoing trade war with China.
Trump said on Thursday that Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
HWT.UL could also be included in the trade deal, while at the
same time calling the Chinese telecommunications giant "very
dangerous." However, no high-level talks have been scheduled since the
last round of negotiations in Washington two weeks ago.
The S&P 500 index .SPX is on pace to end the week 1%
lower, which would make it the third straight week of losses for
the benchmark index, as markets worried that the trade war would
result in a global economic slowdown.
"The markets seem to be struggling to hold on to gains right
now because people don't want to be too long heading into the
holiday weekend," said Marc Pfeffer, chief investment strategist
at CLS Investments in Omaha, Nebraska.
Adding to concerns about a slowing broader economy, data
showed that U.S.-made capital goods fell more than expected in
April. "The positive trade narrative has trumped data today," said
Mike Dowdall, investment strategist for BMO Global Asset
Management, in Chicago.
At 12:55 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 115.03 points, or 0.45%, at 25,605.50. The S&P 500 .SPX was
up 9.31 points, or 0.33%, at 2,831.55 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 31.70 points, or 0.42%, at 7,659.99.
Technology shares, that were among the hardest hit this
week, rose 0.53% boosted by gains in chipmaker Intel Corp
INTC.O and iPhone maker Apple Inc AAPL.O .
Financials .SPSY gained 0.61%, as U.S. treasury yields
rose for the first time in three days.
However markets were off their session highs, with traders
saying volatile trading and thin volumes were likely as market
participants geared up for the long weekend.
Foot Locker Inc FL.N plunged 17.1%, the most on the S&P,
after the footwear retailer, one of the biggest U.S. retailers
of Nike Inc NKE.N shoes, missed quarterly profit and
same-store sales estimates. Shares of Nike dipped 0.2%.
Total System Services Inc TSS.N jumped 13.4% after
Bloomberg reported Global Payments Inc GPN.N has held
preliminary tie-up talks with the payment solutions provider.
Global Payments' shares rose 5.5%.
Autodesk Inc ADSK.O fell 4.5% after the software maker
reported quarterly earnings below expectations.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.99-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.94-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 36 new 52-week highs and 16 new lows,
while the Nasdaq recorded 33 new highs and 86 new lows.