NEW YORK, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks posted mixed weekly results as investors kept a close eye on Turkey's crisis amid hopes for the resumption of the U.S.-China trade talks.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.41 percent, the S&P 500 climbed 0.59 percent, and the Nasdaq decreased 0.19 percent.
It was a turbulent week for Wall Street as Turkey's ongoing geopolitical and economic issues weighed against developments on U.S.-Chinese trade negotiations.
Market sentiment was roughly downbeat earlier this week with two of the first three trading sessions ending lower amid geopolitical concerns over the Turkish turmoil.
The Turkish lira fell to a record low earlier this week amid the intensifying tensions between Ankara and Washington.
Fears of Turkey's financial crisis and the possible contagion to other economies remained, weighing on the market, while reports about the resumption of the U.S.-China trade talks injected optimism, experts noted.
U.S. stocks rallied on Thursday with the Dow soaring nearly 400 points, its biggest one-day jump in four months on hopes for the U.S-China trade talks.
A Chinese delegation led by Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen will, at the invitation of U.S. side, visit the United States in late August to talk with the U.S. counterpart on bilateral economic and trade issues of their own concern, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday.
Investor sentiment was bolstered as Wall Street renewed hope that a resolution to the U.S.-China trade disputes could be on the horizon, according to analysts.
The upbeat note continued on Friday as all the three major indices reported positive results. However, shares of major U.S. chipmakers such as Applied Materials and NVIDIA declined, curbing the gains of the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
Investors also digested a slew of economic data for the week.
The U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index slipped to 95.3 in August from 97.9 in July, lower than market expectation, according to the University of Michigan (UM) Surveys of Consumers Friday.
The number of initial jobless claims, a tracker for layoffs in the United States, was 212,000 in the week ending August 11, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
U.S. retail sales stood at 507.5 billion U.S. dollars in July, an increase of 0.5 percent from the previous month, according to the Department of Commerce on Wednesday.
On other economic data, U.S. National Association of Home Builders' monthly confidence index fell one point to 67 in August, said the association. The closely-watched tracker of builder sentiment has been moving down since May.
Meanwhile, U.S. small business optimism index climbed to 107.9 in July, marking the second highest level in the survey's 45-year history, the National Federation of Independent Business reported on Tuesday. The index measures the opinion of small businesses on the economic conditions in the country.
