US stocks dip as Trump’s tariff letters dent optimism
Suddenly it sounds a lot more like early April, with high tariffs being bandied about and stocks moving lower. But as President Trump sent letters to different countries informing them what rate their imported goods will be levied at in August if they don’t make a deal, the damage was much less severe than the drubbing that followed Liberation Day, as traders seem to keep hope that the sequel to the Rose Garden Rout and Rebound will have a similar happy ending.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 closed down 0.8%, while the Russell 2000 slumped 1.5%. Every S&P 500 sector ETF fell except for utilities, with consumer discretionary faring the worst.
The day’s gains were led by Tractor Supply and Palantir, which were up 3.9% and 3.4%, respectively. Meanwhile Tesla led declines, falling 6.8% after CEO Elon Musk’s plan to start an “America Party” fostered another war of words on social media with Trump and analysts said the EV maker stands to lose about $255 million in regulatory credit revenue each quarter going forward. Meanwhile...
Japanese car companies Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all traded lower after Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on goods from Japan and South Korea.
Shares of recently IPO’d retail darling CoreWeave fell 3% after the company announced plans to buy crypto miner (and business partner) Core Scientific in an all-stock deal worth about $9 billion when it was announced — and 3% less now. Shares of the acquired company tumbled nearly 18%.
Stellantis shares fell 5% after the Jeep maker faced a trifecta of bad headlines including an analyst downgrade, reports of lower production numbers in Italy, and a new NHTSA probe.
Semiconductor stocks including Marvell, On Semiconductor, and Taiwan Semiconductor all dipped on the heels of a report that the Trump administration is cracking down on China’s ability to access AI chips via Malaysia and Thailand.
Uber shares jumped 3%, hitting an intraday all-time high of $97. The move extends a recent rally fueled by steady profits and optimism around the ride-hailing giant’s new tech investments.
Bit Digital soared 18% after the publicly traded digital asset platform announced that it had completed its digital asset treasury transition to ethereum from bitcoin.
GEO Group, which derives over 40% of its revenue from contracts with ICE, rose 4.5% after the GOP’s latest budget bill pushed more federal dollars on the growing network of deportation detention centers.
