Wall Street ends the week on a positive note as investors ignore trade headlines

Major equity indexes started the day with small changes and struggled to extend higher during the first few hours of the session as the latest trade headlines weighed on the market sentiment. However, upbeat macroeconomic data releases from the United States and strong earnings figures changed the mood and allowed Wall Street to end the week higher.

Earlier today, China announced that it would impose import tariffs ranging from 5% to 25% on $60 billion worth of U.S. good. However, even the trade-sensitive S&P 500 Industrials Index was able to shrug off this news and close the day with small gains. "The rhetoric between U.S. and China has been ongoing and everyone has already made their bets on what the trade war is going to be," Craig Hodges, portfolio manager with Hodges Funds in Dallas, Texas, told Reuters.

The monthly report released by the from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the unemployment ticked down to 3.9% in July from 4% in June with a 157,000 increase seen in the total nonfarm employment, which confirmed the Fed's hawkish stance. 

Meanwhile, led by a more than 8% increase seen in Karft Heinz' shares following strong earnings figures, the S&P 500 Consumer Staple Index added 1.2% on the day to become the second-best performing sector behind the rate-sensitive S&P 500 Real Estate Index.

On the other hand, falling crude oil prices, once again, weighed on the S&P 500 Energy Index and forced it to close the week with a 0.47% loss.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 128.32 points, or 0.51%, to 25,454.48, the S&P 500 rose 12.7 points, or 0.45%, to 2,839.32 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 8.59 points, or 0.11%, to 7,811.27. For the week, these three indexes gained 0.04%, 0.76%, and 0.96% respectively.