The US markets ended marginally lower on Friday as traders were looking ahead to next week's G20 summit in Japan, where Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet in an effort to revive trade talks. The outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting could have a significant impact on the perception of the likelihood for an eventual US-China trade deal. Traders also seemed cautious amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran after Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone on Thursday. President Donald Trump has revealed he was just minutes away from launching a retaliatory attack on Iran before calling off the strikes. He said ‘we were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General’ The Trump administration has claimed the drone was over international waters when it was shot down, although Iran's Revolutionary Guard has argued the drone was flying over Iranian territory.
On the economic front, with purchasing power bolstered by falling mortgage rates, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing a bigger than expected jump in US existing home sales in the month of May. NAR said existing home sales surged up by 2.5 percent to an annual rate of 5.34 million in April, while revised data showed existing home sales in April were unchanged at a rate of 5.21 million. Street had expected existing home sales to increase by 1.2 percent to a rate of 5.25 million from the 5.19 million originally reported for the previous month. The report said the median existing home price for all housing types was $277,700 in May, up 4 percent from $266,900 in April and up 4.8 percent from $265,100 in May of 2018. Total housing inventory increased to 1.92 million existing homes available for sale at the end of May, representing 4.3 months of supply at the current sales pace.
Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 34.04 points or 0.13 percent to 26719.13, Nasdaq fell 19.63 points or 0.24 percent to 8031.71 and S&P 500 was down by 3.72 points or 0.13 percent to 2950.46.
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