Wall Street Falls On Trade War Escalation, Weak Data

REUTERS/ANDREW KELLY/FILE PHOTO

A street sign for Wall Street is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, in July 2021. All three U.S. stock indexes fell today after President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcement followed weak jobs and consumer sentiment data.

All three U.S. stock indexes fell today after President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcement followed weak jobs and consumer sentiment data.

During a meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Trump said he might impose reciprocal tariffs on several countries next week. He did not identify which countries would be hit.

“Today, the tone was set early with the payroll report and very quickly people ignored that as soon as tariff conversations started coming back in,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide.

Earlier in the day, a survey showed U.S. consumer sentiment dropped unexpectedly in February to a seven-month low and inflation expectations rocketed, with households seeing inflation over the next year surging to 4.3% – the highest since November 2023.

Another report showed U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in January after robust gains in the prior two months, although a 4% unemployment rate will likely give the Fed cover to hold off cutting interest rates at least until June.

The final employment report under former President Joe Biden’s administration showed 598,000 fewer jobs were created in the 12 months through last March than previously estimated. The final payrolls benchmark revision, however, was less than the reduction of 818,000 jobs estimated back in August.

Traders of short-term interest-rate futures now expect the Fed to cut interest rates just once this year, backing away from earlier bets on two rate cuts starting in June.

At 2:05 p.m. ET (9:05 a.m. Hawaii time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 385.85 points, or 0.86%, to 44,361.78, the S&P 500 lost 49.43 points, or 0.81%, to 6,034.14 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 247.70 points, or 1.25%, to 19,544.29.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors traded lower, with consumer discretionary leading losses with a more than 2% fall.

Uber jumped 7.7% after billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman disclosed a large stake in the company.

Amazon.com dipped 3.8% due to weakness in the retailer’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, and lower-than-expected forecasts for first-quarter revenue and profit.

Markets had a dismal start to the week when Trump announced sweeping trade tariffs over the weekend, but suspended the levies on goods from Mexico and Canada on Monday for a month.

Since then, a host of strong earnings and optimism about a trade negotiation with China have the S&P 500 and the Dow on track for weekly gains, with the blue-chip index on pace for its fourth straight weekly rise.

Among other movers, Expedia added 14.6% after the online travel platform posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

Elf Beauty tumbled 19% after the cosmetics company cut its annual net sales and profit forecasts.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2.34-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange, and by a 2.42-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and 16 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 134 new lows.

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