US STOCKS-Wall St flat amid Sino-U.S. tensions, economic uncertainty

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* Indexes set for weekly gain of 2.8% to 3.2%
* Alibaba slips despite upbeat earnings report
* KKR rises on deal with India's Reliance Industries
* Dow off 0.41%, S&P down 0.11%, Nasdaq up 0.16%

(Adds details, comments, updates prices)
By Ambar Warrick
May 22 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes moved in a flat-to-low
range on Friday as investors gauged Sino-U.S. tensions amid
continued uncertainty over the pace of economic recovery from
the coronavirus.
President Donald Trump's warning on Thursday that the U.S.
would react strongly to China's plan for a national security law
in Hong Kong raised concerns over Washington and Beijing
possibly reneging on their Phase-1 trade deal. The rhetoric knocked Wall Street off multi-month highs,
although the main indexes were still set to add between 2.8% and
3.1% for the week on optimism over a vaccine and the easing of
virus-related curbs.
Fears of a renewed trade war had paused Wall Street's April
rally and injected a degree of caution, keeping them in a tight
range.
"It's being treated as the beginning of some tensions that
are likely to get worse before they get better," said Art Hogan,
chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.
"The market will react in an evidence-based way. It's not
racing to any conclusions on how bad these tensions get."
At 1:13 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 100.93 points, or 0.41%, at 24,373.19, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 3.26 points, or 0.11%, at 2,945.25. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 15.28 points, or 0.16%, at 9,300.16.
Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sub-indexes were trading
lower, led by energy .SPNY as oil prices sank 5%. O/R
Real Estate and utilities 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 this week showed
online shopping gaining traction due to the stay-at-home orders,
a trend that could damage brick-and-mortar players.
On Friday, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group BABA.N
reported better-than-expected quarterly profit, but its shares
slipped 5.7%. Smaller rival Pinduoduo Inc's U.S.-listed shares
PDD.O gained 11% after posting upbeat earnings report.
KKR & Co KKR.N rose 1.1% after India's Reliance Industries
RELI.NS said the private equity firm would buy 2.3% stake in
its digital unit for 113.67 billion rupees ($1.50 billion).
Data analytics software maker Splunk Inc SPLK.O rose 12%
after saying it expects more demand for its cloud services.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.58-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and for a 1.27-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded five new 52-week highs and no new
low, while the Nasdaq recorded 49 new highs and seven new lows.