Updates with afternoon trading

By Sukriti Gupta and Noel Randewich

Feb 28 (Reuters) - Wall Street climbed in choppy trading on Friday, with Broadcom dipping and other tech stocks climbing after a meeting between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy ended in disaster.

Zelenskiy and Trump traded verbal blows at the White House before the world's media over Ukraine's war with Russia. That added fresh uncertainty for investors already worried about sticky U.S. inflation and a tepid economy.

U.S. stocks moved lower immediately after the clash, then recovered and moved higher.

Zelenskiy left the White House without signing a much-vaunted deal between Ukraine and the U.S. over the joint development of natural resources.

"The news, if you watched it live, it was pretty worrisome. It got heated, and Zelenskiy is considered an ally of the U.S.," said Adam Sarhan, Chief Executive at 50 Park Investments. "That's why the market sold off, but then cooler heads prevailed. Zelenskiy either is going to make a deal or he's not."

Chipmaker Broadcom AVGO.O was down 1.1%, weighing on the S&P 500, while Nvidia NVDA.O, Apple AAPL.O and Tesla TSLA.O rose.

The S&P 500 was up 0.38% at 5,883.68 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.29% to 18,598.86 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.38% at 43,403.08 points.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, 11 rose, led by financials .SPSY, up 0.94%, followed by a 0.84% gain in energy .SPNY.

Earlier, a Commerce Department report showed inflation rose in line with expectations in the previous month. However, consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, dropped 0.2% after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase in December. This could complicate the Federal Reserve's deliberations on monetary policy.

"Spending came in lower than we were looking for... most of it I would attribute to a cooling economy, which presents a dilemma for the Fed in the sense that you still have inflation and you have an economy that is moving lower. If you add them together, that equals stagflation," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

Friday's report is important for investors trying to gauge the next move for the central bank after policymakers reiterated a hawkish stance. Investors worry Trump's policies, especially trade restrictions, could exacerbate U.S. inflation.

"Tariff talk certainly is having a negative effect on the stock market, and it probably will keep a lid on stock market advances until there's more clarity around that," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

Traders see the Fed lowering borrowing costs twice by December, little changed from before the report, according to data compiled by LSEG. Investors will assess comments from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee later in the day.

The CBOE Volatility Index .VIX, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, touched a one-month high and was last up at 21.26 points.

Signs of a tepid economy and concerns that Microsoft MSFT.O and other technology heavyweights may be overspending on artificial-intelligence infrastructure have put Wall Street's main indexes on track for monthly declines.

The S&P 500 is on track for its biggest monthly drop since April 2024. The tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC is down about 8% from its record high close last December and is headed for its steepest one-month fall since September 2023.

Dell DELL.N lost 6.1% after the PC maker forecast a decline in its adjusted gross margin rate for fiscal 2026.

Peer HP Inc HPQ.N fell 8.9% after its quarterly profit forecasts missed expectations.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai, Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com;))