Wall Street today: US stocks drift amid uncertainty over China tariff talks, Tesla soars 7%, Google rises 3.6%

US stock indices were drifting on Friday amid lingering uncertainty over US-China trade war.

At 11:08 AM EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.49%, the S&P 500 gained 0.02%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.34%.

At 9:41 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 45.20 points, or 0.11%, to 40,048.20, the S&P 500 gained 6.09 points, or 0.11%, to 5,490.86 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 29.72 points, or 0.17%, to 17,195.76.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 47.7 points, or 0.12%, to 40,045.73. The S&P 500 rose 5.0 points, or 0.09%, to 5,489.73​, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 16.1 points, or 0.09%, to 17,182.112.

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump had hinted at a possible trade deal with China, saying direct talks were already underway.

According to reports, China is mulling exempting some US imports from its 125% tariffs and is asking businesses to identify goods that could be eligible.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.28% from 4.32% late on Thursday.

Gainers and Losers

Shares of Google-parent Alphabet leapt 3.6% after the IT giant reported strong first quarter results.

Tesla stock soared 7% after the Trump administration announced on Thursday that it aims to speed up deployment of self-driving vehicles by exempting some from certain safety requirements and easing rules that require the reporting of safety incidents.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the new framework to boost autonomous vehicles would help US automakers compete with Chinese rivals.

Among other megacap stocks, Meta Platforms gained 1.6%, Nvidia rose 1.49%, Amazon added 0.08%, and Apple fell 0.58%.

Intel shares tumbled 7.3% after the chipmaker's dour forecast.

T-Mobile stock tanked 8.2% after adding fewer wireless subscribers than expected in the first quarter.

Shares of AbbVie surged 2% after the drugmaker lifted its annual profit forecast.

Bullion

Gold prices dropped 2% on Friday as the US dollar rose and on signs of easing US-China trade tensions.

Spot gold was down 1.9% at $3,284.13 an ounce as of 09:10 AM EDT (1310 GMT).

US gold futures slipped 1.6% to $3,294.50.

Spot silver slipped 1.1% to $33.21 an ounce. Platinum fell 0.5% to $965.75 and palladium dipped 1.5% to $939.82.

Crude oil

Oil prices slipped on Friday, following pressure from market expectations of oversupply and uncertainty around tariff talks between the United States and China.

Brent crude futures were down 57 cents to $65.98 a barrel at 1314 GMT.

US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 55 cents to $62.24 a barrel.