Stocks extend recent selloff, oil drops as China hits back after Trump tariffs
by Caroline Valetkevitch, Reuters · KSL.comEstimated read time: 4-5 minutes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Global stocks and oil prices fell sharply amid escalating U.S.-China trade tensions.
- Nasdaq approached a bear market; S&P 500 lost over $4 trillion in value.
- Federal Reserve Chair Powell warned of larger-than-expected economic fallout from tariffs.
NEW YORK — Global stock markets tumbled and oil prices dropped for a second day on Friday, as China struck back against President Donald Trump's tariffs and worries mounted over a global trade war.
The Nasdaq Composite was headed toward a bear market, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index confirmed it was in a correction as the trade war fanned global recession concerns.
Since Trump unveiled his tariffs late on Wednesday, S&P 500 companies have lost over $4 trillion in stock market value, a record two-day decline for the benchmark, exceeding a two-day loss of $3.3 trillion in March 2020, when the pandemic ripped across global markets, according to LSEG data compiled by Reuters.
Some investors fled to the safety of government bonds, while the dollar recovered from Thursday's weakness.
Responding to Trump's tariffs, China on Friday said it would impose additional levies of 34% on American goods, confirming investor fears that a full-blown global trade war is under way.
Trump slapped a 10% tariff on most U.S. imports and much higher levies on dozens of countries, erecting the steepest trade barriers in more than 100 years.
"It's sort of the worst fears of where the tariff program was headed," said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.
"For those investors who were sure it was just a negotiation — while that still may be true at some point — it's getting awfully deeper into the detail and more dangerous for companies."
Data showing the U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in March did little to brighten the mood.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in remarks at a business journalists' conference in Arlington, Virginia, that Trump's new tariffs are "larger than expected" and the economic fallout, including higher inflation and slower growth, likely will be as well.
He also said the U.S. central bank does not have a prediction of a downturn in its outlook but he recognized private-sector forecasters are shifting on that front.
"I think (Powell's) comments will be disappointing for those who believe that the Fed is going to step in anytime soon," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
Companies with exposure to China also fell. Apple, Nvidia and Amazon.com all were down sharply.
Bank shares dropped across the globe as fears of a recession increased. The S&P 500 financial index was down 6.8%, while energy was down more than 8% as oil prices fell.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,953.69 points, or 4.78%, to 38,601.34, the S&P 500 lost 288.97 points, or 5.35%, to 5,107.55 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 871.79 points, or 5.25%, to 15,678.81.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe dropped 41.22 points, or 5.1%, to 766.42.
The pan-European STOXX index closed 5.1% lower, its biggest daily loss since the COVID-19-fuelled selloff in 2020. The index fell nearly 12% from its March 3 all-time closing high, confirming it was in correction territory.
Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 2.8% overnight for a second session running.
Brent crude futures fell 6.5% to settle at $65.58. U.S. crude futures lost 7.4% to settle at $61.99, the lowest since April 2021.
The U.S. dollar recovered against the euro and yen, with Powell signalling a cautious tone on future easing. The dollar index was last up 0.9% after its biggest fall since November 2022 on Thursday.
The euro was down 0.81% at $1.096. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.58% to 146.9.
After years of huge flows into U.S. stocks and a booming American economy, investors are grappling with where to put their cash.
That helped drive a powerful rush toward government bond markets. The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell 12.2 basis points to 3.933% after falling to a six-month low of 3.86%. Yields move inversely to prices.
The German 10-year bond yield, the benchmark for the euro zone bloc, fell as much as 17 bps during the day.
Money market futures were pricing in cumulative rate cuts of 110 basis points from the Fed by the end of this year, compared with about 75 bps a week earlier.
Traders increased their bets on Bank of England and European Central Bank reductions too.
"A lot of investors I've talked to have just said in this kind of environment, let's go to cash and just wait it out," Meckler said.
Contributing: Harry Robertson, Stephen Culp, and Rae Wee
Photos
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.