NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks ended lower on Thursday following a late-afternoon retreat on growing US-China tensions, as markets digested more bad economic data following coronavirus shutdowns.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.2 per cent to 3,029.73, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.5 per cent to 9,368.99. The announcement follows strong US criticism of a security law allowing China to tighten its grip on Hong Kong. Labour Department data showed another 2.12 million people filed for unemployment in the United States last week, pushing total layoffs since the start of the coronavirus crisis to more than 40 million.