US STOCKS-Wall St dips on U.S.-China tensions, economic woes

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Stocks set for weekly gains on recovery hopes
* Alibaba slips despite upbeat earnings report
* Splunk jumps after forecasting higher cloud demand
* Indexes: Dow down 0.35%, S&P off 0.15%, Nasdaq up 0.09%

(Adds details, updates prices)
By Ambar Warrick and Pawel Goraj
May 22 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes moved in a flat-to-low
range on Friday as simmering Sino-U.S. tensions weighed on
markets struggling to gauge the pace of economic recovery from
the coronavirus.
President Donald Trump's rhetoric against China's plan for a
national security law in Hong Kong on Thursday raised concerns
over Washington and Beijing reneging on their phase-1 trade
deal. Fears of a renewed trade war have cut short Wall Street's
April rally and indexes are now moving in a tight range, with
fresh tariff actions likely to hamper a recovery from the
economic shock of the coronavirus.
"Sentiment is really vulnerable to expensive valuation at
the moment," said Andrea Cicione, head of strategy at TS Lombard
in London.
"After the shock of the COVID-19 lockdown, we have to go
through a regular recession with high unemployment, low capex,
low demand and that's not what's priced in at the moment."
Still, optimism over the U.S. economy gradually emerging
from the lockdowns have put the major indexes on course for
weekly gains, with the S&P 500 .SPX set to add more than 2%.
At 9:56 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 86.21 points, or 0.35%, at 24,387.91, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 4.34 points, or 0.15%, at 2,944.17. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 8.51 points, or 0.09%, at 9,293.39.
Ten of the 11 major S&P 500 sub-indexes were trading lower,
led by energy .SPNY as oil prices sank 5%. Technology and
healthcare shares were the biggest drag on the index. O/R
Real Estate stocks were up in some defensive plays, while
losses were limited in the consumer staples sector.
Mixed retail earnings from Walmart Inc WMT.N , Best Buy Co
Inc BBY.N and Home Depot Inc HD.N earlier in the week had
shown online shopping gaining traction due to the stay-at-home
orders.
On Friday, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group BABA.N
reported better-than-expected quarterly profit, but its shares
slipped 4.4%. Smaller rival Pinduoduo Inc's U.S.-listed shares
PDD.O gained 1% after posting upbeat earnings report.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE.N fell 8.4% after missing
second-quarter revenue and profit estimates, hit by global
lockdowns since February. Data analytics software maker Splunk Inc SPLK.O rose 7.7%
after saying it expects higher demand for its cloud services as
people around the world take to working from home. Declining issues nearly matched advancers on the NYSE and
the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded two new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 24 new highs and four new lows.