Bay Area stocks on edge ahead of Trump’s China comments

Bay Area business stalwarts such as Twitter, Apple and Facebook recorded mild losses on the stock market Friday amid a broad retreat on Wall Street as investors awaited what President Donald Trump would have to say at a news conference about China.

Trump offered no details about the subject matter of the news conference, other than it would focus on China. Trump has often blamed China for what he considers to be the country’s coverup of early details about the severity of coronavirus, which initially arose around the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. Trump administration officials this week have also been critical of new Chinese security measures that run against the independence of Hong Kong.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 213 points, or almost 1%, to 25,187.24, while the Nasdaq Composite Index edged up by 0.1%, to 9,375.42 and the S&P 500 gave up 0.5%, to go down to 3,014.05 in advance of Trump’s comments about China.

Among Bay Area companies, Twitter shares fell 2.5%, to $30.85 a day after Trump signed an executive order designed to hold Twitter and other social media companies more responsible for the content that is posted on their sites. Trump’s action came after Twitter flagged two of his tweets from earlier in the with fact-checking notices for the first time. On Friday, Twitter placed a warning label on one of Trump’s tweets saying it glorified violence.

Along with Twitter, Facebook shares gave up 0.4%, to fall to $224.49, Apple was off slightly at $318.23 a share, and HP shares slipped by 0.2%, to $14.98.

Tesla was up almost 1%, at $812.80 a share, one day after Chief Executive Elon Musk received a stock-option package worth almost $800 million. Musk earned the options as part of his performance-based compensation after Tesla maintained an average market capitalization of at least $100 billion for six months.

Uber rose by 2.5%, to $35.01 a share, after the ride-hailing leader said it would offer riders in several U.S. cities the option to book rides by the hour for $50 and include multiple stops in such rides.