STORY: U.S. stocks ended a choppy session mixed on Friday, with the Dow up marginally, the S&P 500 flat and the Nasdaq down about a third of a percent.
Despite the muted results, the S&P and Nasdaq registered their biggest monthly percentage gains since November 2023.
Stocks were down early in the session after President Donald Trump issued a new veiled threat to get tougher with China regarding its trade agreement with the U.S.
The indexes pared losses after Trump said he would speak to China's President Xi Jinping and hopefully work out their differences.
Adam Coons, chief investment officer at Winthrop Capital Management, says this type of tariff-driven volatility will likely last throughout the year.
"Well, stocks today, and really this entire week, are continuing to be driven by the rhetoric around tariffs. If they're going to happen? How they're going to happen? Are they legal? Are they going to have to pay back any of the tariff revenue that's been generated so far? [FLASH] And so it's likely that the remainder of this year is going to be that same type of investment environment where investors will try to figure out what's going to happen next and they'll get it wrong. They'll pivot, and then you'll see this capitulation in the market because just the overall back and forth volatility with no real resolution, will just kind of exhaust the market."
Stocks on the move Friday included Regeneron, which fell 19% after its experimental drug for patients with a type of lung condition commonly called "smoker's lung" failed a late-stage trial.
Shares of Ulta Beauty jumped almost 12% and touched a 52-week high after the cosmetics retailer raised its annual profit forecast after beating quarterly results.
And shares of Palantir Technologies rose nearly 8% after The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump has expanded the data firm's roll across the federal government.
