NEW YORK, May 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks traded lower on Friday, as investors kept a wait-and-see attitude towards updates regarding global trade.
At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 280.21 points, or 1.08 percent, to 25,548.15. The S&P 500 fell 34.60 points, or 1.21 percent, to 2,836.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index decreased 122.25 points, or 1.55 percent, to 7,788.34.
Nine of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors traded lower around midday, with the information technology sector down around 1.85 percent, leading the losers.
Shares of Ford rose nearly 0.6 percent, after Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded the company's stock to "buy" from "neutral."
The bank said in a note that the automobile giant has started "a more sustainable inflection in earnings" propelled by a favorable product cadence and restructuring efforts.
Shares of Marriott International declined over 5 percent, after the hotel giant posted first-quarter revenue that fell short of market estimates.
On the economic front, U.S. consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.3 percent in April, down from the 0.4 percent growth in March, said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.
April's growth came as the gasoline index continued to pick up, rising 5.7 percent and accounting for over two-thirds of the all items monthly increase.
The energy index also rose, while the food index fell for the first month since June 2017. Enditem
