US STOCKS-Tech pulls Wall Street lower on Trump trade warning

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* Fed's rate-setting meeting underway
* Trump fires new trade warning at China
* Apple results eyed
* P&G rises on quarterly profit beat
* Indexes off: Dow 0.09%, S&P 500 0.26%, Nasdaq 0.24%

(Updates to market close)
By Evan Sully
NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - Wall Street lost ground on
Tuesday after a warning from President Donald Trump to China
amid ongoing trade negotiations pressured technology shares,
while investors looked to an expected Federal Reserve interest
rate cut at the conclusion of its monetary policy meeting.
The three major U.S. stock indexes concluded the session in
the red, pressured by technology and consumer discretionary
stocks.
As trade talks between the world's two biggest economies
continued in Shanghai on Tuesday, Trump warned China against
trying to wait out his first term in office to finalize a deal.
"Techs are weaker today, as Trump took another shot across
the bow to China over trade," said Joseph Sroka, chief
investment officer at NovaPoint in Atlanta. "Big multinational
tech companies are very sensitive to trade and tariff issues
with China."
Apple Inc's AAPL.O results could illuminate the impact of
the trade tensions with China. Shares of the iPhone maker closed
down 0.4%, contributing the most to the tech sector's .SPLRCT
0.7% drop.
Market participants are looking to the Fed's statement at
the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday for clues as
to how the central bank will proceed through year-end.
Many analysts said a 25-basis-point cut in interest rates is
fully priced into the market. "The message this sends to the market is that the Fed is
supportive of economic expansion," said Sroka. "That they're
cognizant of trade and tariff issues causing some slowdown, and
a small cut tomorrow reinforces that rates are more likely to go
down than up in the intermediate term, which markets see as a
positive signal."
Commerce Department data showed U.S. consumer spending and
prices rose moderately in June, pointing to slower economic
growth and bolstering the case for monetary easing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 23.33 points,
or 0.09%, to 27,198.02, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 7.79 points, or
0.26%, to 3,013.18he Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 19.72
points, or 0.24%, to 8,273.61.
More than half of the S&P 500 companies have released
second-quarter earnings, of which 75.9% have beat bottom-line
analyst expectations, according to Refinitiv data.
Procter & Gamble Co PG.N jumped 3.8% after the consumer
products maker beat quarterly revenue estimates, limiting
losses on the blue-chip Dow index. Shares of Capital One Financial Corp COF.N fell 5.9% after
the credit-card issuer said information on 106 million people
had been compromised. Pfizer Inc's PFE.N stock dropped 6.4%, weighing the most
on the healthcare index .SPXHC , after brokers downgraded the
stock following the drugmaker's announcement on Monday that it
would spin off its Upjohn unit and merge it with Mylan MYL.O .
Merck & Co Inc MRK.N edged higher after reporting
better-than-expected second-quarter results and raising its
full-year earnings forecast. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.26-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.64-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 30 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 76 new highs and 89 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.47 billion shares, compared
with the 6.07 billion average over the last 20 trading days.