Stocks climb in shaky trading but the dollar and government bonds sink over trade-war fears
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing in shaky trading Friday as President Donald Trump’s trade war with China escalates further and U.S. households get more worried about it. Gold's price is rising, the U.S. dollar's value is falling and other financial markets are also swinging in indications of fear about where the U.S. economy will ultimately fit in the world's.
The S&P 500 was up 1.4% in afternoon trading, but only after veering repeatedly between earlier gains and losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 456 points, or 1.2%, as of 12:57 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% higher. Both also swung earlier, with the Dow going from a loss of nearly 340 points to a gain of nearly 500 points.
The shaky trading came after China announced Friday that it was boosting its tariffs on U.S. products to 125% in the latest tit-for-tat increase following Trump's escalations on imports from China.
The repeated U.S. tariff increases “on China has become a numbers game, which has no practical economic significance, and will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a Finance Ministry spokesman said in a statement announcing the new tariffs. “However, if the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counter and fight to the end.”
Rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies could cause widespread damage and a possible global recession, even after Trump recently announced a 90-day pause on some of his tariffs for other countries, except for China.
All the uncertainty caused by the trade war is eroding confidence among U.S. shoppers, which could affect their spending and translate into real damage for the economy, which came into this year running at a solid rate.
A preliminary survey by the University of Michigan suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is falling even more sharply than economists expected. “This decline was, like the last month’s, pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation,” according to the survey's director, Joanne Hsu.
“We remain in the early innings of this global trade regime change, and while the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs temporarily reversed the market selloff, it does prolong uncertainty,” according to Darrell Cronk, president of Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
The price of gold rose more than 2% following China's latest escalation. It’s one of the areas of the market that investors have instinctually herded to when fear is high.
Other areas historically seen as safe havens aren’t seeing the same wave, though. The value of the U.S. dollar fell again against everything from the euro to the Japanese yen to the Canadian dollar.
Prices for longer-term Treasury bonds, which are essentially IOUs from the U.S. government, also fell. That’s counter to their history. Treasurys have long been seen as one of the safest possible investments in the world.
The drop in prices for Treasurys in turn sent their yields higher, because investors are essentially demanding to get paid more for the risk of holding them. The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped as high as 4.58% earlier in the day, but has moderated to 4.47%. It stood at 4.40% late Thursday and just 4.01% at the end of last week. That's a major move for the bond market.
Several reasons could be behind this week’s jump in U.S. Treasury yields. Investors outside the United States could be selling their U.S. bonds because of the trade war, and hedge funds could be selling whatever’s available in order to raise cash to cover other losses.
More worryingly, doubts may be rising about the United States’ reputation as the world’s safest place to keep cash. The jump in yields could also be an indication of stress in the financial system’s plumbing.
Regardless of the reasons for their rise, higher yields crank up pressure on the stock market and raise rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.
The market's swings came after a set of stronger-than-expected profit reports Friday from some of the biggest U.S. banks, which traditionally help kick off each earnings reporting season.
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo all reported stronger profit for the first three months of the year than analysts expected. JPMorgan Chase rose 3.2%, Morgan Stanley rose 0.2% and Wells Fargo lost 2.1%.
Another report on inflation also came in better than expected. That could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut interest rates if it feels the need to support the economy. Lower rates would help make mortgages and other loans cheaper to get.
But Friday’s report on inflation at the wholesale level was backward looking, measuring March’s price levels. The worry is that inflation will rise in coming months as Trump’s tariffs make their way through the economy. And that could tie the Fed's hands.
The University of Michigan's survey suggested U.S. consumers are bracing for inflation of 6.7% in the year ahead, up from last month's forecast of 5.0%. That's the highest since 1981, and such expectations can create a feedback loop that only pushes inflation higher.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were scattershot around the world. Germany’s DAX lost 0.9%, but the FTSE 100 in London added 0.6% as the government reported the economy, the world’s sixth largest, enjoyed a growth spurt in February. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 3%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 1.1%.