Financial Markets 04/01 15:26
NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks swerved through another shaky day of trading
Tuesday, with uncertainty still high about just what President Donald Trump
will announce about tariffs on his "Liberation Day" coming Wednesday.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% after roaring back from an early drop of 1%. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average edged down by 11 points, or less than 0.1%, after
pinging between a loss of 480 points and a gain of nearly 140, while the Nasdaq
composite added 0.9%.
Wall Street has been particularly shaky recently, and momentum has been
swinging not just day to day but also hour to hour because of uncertainty about
what Trump will do with tariffs -- and by how much they will worsen inflation
and grind down growth for economies. On Monday, for example, the S&P 500
careened from an early loss of 1.7% to a gain of 0.7%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields sank after a report said U.S.
manufacturing activity contracted last month, breaking a two-month streak of
growth. A separate report said U.S. employers were advertising slightly fewer
job openings at the end of February than economists expected.
Companies are saying they're already feeling effects from Trump's trade war,
even with the main event potentially coming on Wednesday, when the president
will announce a sweeping set of tariffs.
"Customers are pulling in orders due to anxiety about continued tariffs and
pricing pressures," one computer and electronic products company told the
Institute for Supply Management in its monthly manufacturers' survey.
"Starting to see slower-than-normal sales in Canada, and concerns of
Canadians boycotting U.S. products could become a reality," a manufacturer in
the food, beverage and tobacco products industry said in the ISM's survey.
The U.S. economy is still growing, to be sure, and the job market has
remained relatively solid even with February's slightly weaker-than-expected
job openings.
But one of the worries hitting the market is that even if Trump announces
less-punishing tariffs than feared on Wednesday, the stop-and-start rollout of
his trade strategy may by itself cause U.S. households and businesses to freeze
their spending, which would damage the economy. Trump has pushed for tariffs in
part to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from other countries.
All the nervousness in the market has helped push the price of gold to
records, and it briefly topped $3,175 per ounce Tuesday. That's up from less
than $2,700 at the start of the year.
On Wall Street, Tesla charged 3.6% higher a day ahead of reporting how many
vehicles it delivered during the first three months of the year.
Worries have grown about a potential backlash from customers, and protestors
have been swarming Tesla showrooms due to anger about CEO Elon Musk's leading
the U.S. government's efforts to cut spending. Tesla's stock is still down by
roughly a third for the year so far.
PVH jumped 18.2% after the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy
Hilfiger brands reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts
expected. It also said it plans to send $500 million to shareholders this year
through purchases of its own stock.
Newsmax soared another 179% to follow up on its 735% surge from Monday,
which was the first day of trading for the news company's stock.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Johnson & Johnson, which dropped 7.6%
after a U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied the company's settlement plan
related to baby powder containing talc. It's the third time the company's
attempt to resolve the baby powder settlement through bankruptcy has been
rejected by courts.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 21.22 points to 5,633.07. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average dipped 11.80 to 41,989.96, and the Nasdaq composite gained
150.60 to 17,449.89.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia to
recover some of their sharp drops from the day before.
In Europe, Germany's DAX returned 1.7%, and France's CAC 40 rose 1.1% after
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the world's biggest
trade bloc would not cower in the face of U.S. trade demands.
"Europe holds a lot of cards, from trade to technology to the size of our
market. But this strength is also built on our readiness to take firm counter
measures if necessary," von der Leyen said. "All instruments are on the table."
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 held steady as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said
he was imploring Trump not to impose higher auto tariffs on Japan, a longtime
U.S. ally. A central bank survey found a worsening in business sentiment among
big manufacturers.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.16% from
4.23% late Monday and from roughly 4.80% in January. That's a significant move
for the bond market, and yields have been falling with worries about a
potentially slowing U.S. economy.
___
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
___ This story has been corrected to show that PVH is buying back $500
million of its own stock, not $500 billion.
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