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Financial-Markets 07/08 16:12
A choppy day in the markets left major U.S. stock indexes little changed
Tuesday as the Trump administration pressed its campaign to win more favorable
trade deals with nations around the globe by leaning into tariffs on goods
coming into the U.S.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% a day after posting its biggest loss since
mid-June. The benchmark index remains near its all-time high set last week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave back 0.4%. The Nasdaq composite eked
out a gain of less than 0.1%, staying near its own record high.
The sluggish trading came as the market was coming off a broad sell-off
following the Trump administration's decision to impose new import tariffs set
to go into effect next month on more than a dozen nations.
Still, the modest pullback in the markets is a sign that Wall Street may be
betting that the U.S. and its trading partners may eventually negotiate deals
that will reduce or eliminate the need for punishing tariffs, said Ross
Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.
"I think today you're basically seeing a market that doesn't quite believe
the worst of this is going to come to bear and is just kind of waiting for any
sort of clarity because we seem back in that in that kind of phase where things
change every couple of hours," Mayfield said.
On Monday, President Donald Trump set a 25% tax on goods imported from Japan
and South Korea and new tariff rates on a dozen other nations scheduled to go
into effect on Aug. 1.
Trump provided notice by posting letters on Truth Social that were addressed
to the leaders of the various countries. The letters warned them to not
retaliate by increasing their own import taxes, or else the Trump
administration would further increase tariffs.
Just before hefty U.S. tariffs on goods imported from nearly every country
around the globe were to take effect in April, Trump postponed the levies for
90 days in hopes that foreign governments would be more willing to strike new
trade deals. That 90-day negotiating period was set to expire before Wednesday.
With the tariffs set to kick in now on Aug. 1, the latest move by the White
House amounts to essentially a four-week extension of its previous 90-day
pause, wrote Tobin Marcus, an analyst at Wolfe Research.
"At a very basic level, nothing actually happened based on Trump sending
these letters, so there's no reason to panic over headlines," he wrote. "But we
think these moves do contain some signal about where the trade war is heading,
and that signal is mostly hawkish."
During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump said he would be announcing tariffs
on pharmaceutical drugs at a "very, very high rate, like 200%." He also said he
would sign an executive order placing a 50% tariff on copper imports, matching
the rates charged on steel and aluminum.
Shares in mining company Freeport-McMoRan rose 2.5% following Trump's
remarks. The price of copper for September delivery jumped 13.1% to $5.69 per
pound.
This latest phase in the trade war heightens the threat of potentially more
severe tariffs that's been hanging over the global economy. Higher taxes on
imported goods could hinder economic growth, if not increase recession risks.
Gains in technology, energy and health care stocks helped outweigh a
pullback in banks and other sectors.
Intel jumped 7.2%, Exxon Mobil rose 2.8% and AbbVie rose 1.1%. JPMorgan and
Bank of America each fell 3.1%.
Amazon shares fell 1.8% as the online retail giant kicked off Prime Day,
which, beginning this year, lasts four days. Amazon launched the membership
sales event in 2015 and expanded it to two days in 2019.
Elsewhere in the market, First Solar slid 6.5% after Trump issued an
executive order ending subsidies for foreign-controlled energy companies.
Hershey Co. lost 3.2% after the chocolate maker announced that Wendy's CEO
Kirk Tanner will succeed current CEO Michele Buck, who is retiring.
Shares in WeightWatchers parent WW International gave up an early gain and
dropped 1.1% after the company announced that it has completed its
reorganization and relisting on Nasdaq. The company filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in May to eliminate $1.15 billion in debt and focus on
its transition into a telehealth services provider.
Bond yields mostly rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.40%
from 4.39% late Monday.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 4.46 points to 6,225.52. The Dow lost 165.60
points to 44,240.76, and the Nasdaq added 5.95 points to 20,418.46.
The market's downbeat start to the week follows a strong run for stocks,
which pushed further into record heights last week after a better-than-expected
U.S. jobs report.
In stock markets overseas, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. In
two of the bigger moves, South Korea's Kospi surged 1.8%, and Hong Kong's Hang
Seng index climbed 1.1%.
The National Federation of Independent Business reported Tuesday that its
small business optimism index fell slightly last month, in line with analysts'
expectations. The index tracks how small firms view the U.S. economy and their
business prospects.
On Wednesday the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its policymaking
committee's meeting last month. The Fed's chair, Jerome Powell, has said the
central bank wants to wait and see how Trump's tariffs affect the economy and
inflation before making its next move on interest rates.
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