...Trump isn't stopping at just Mexico, Canada and China, as it seeks to broaden its tariff, no surprise here but that is enough to spook the market.
...Dow slumped -444pts, S&P500 -0.95% and Nasdaq -1.36%.
Gold hit a new all time high of $2886 before a close of $2862, US equities fall as hopes for lower rates fade again Timothy MooreBefore the Bell editor
Feb 8, 2025 – 4.46am
US equities were broadly lower in the final session of their week after the US economy added fewer new jobs last month than expected, and a survey found consumers increasingly worried about rising prices, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady for longer.
At the closing bell, the S&P 500 had fallen 1 per cent, as had the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.4 per cent. ASX futures were pointing to an opening loss for local shares on Monday.
In addition to the data prints, President Donald Trump on Friday (Saturday AEDT) said he plans to announce reciprocal tariffs on many countries early next week, heightening uncertainty for corporate America, still reeling from Mr Trump’s aggressive trade approach towards key allies Canada and Mexico.
“We think a casualty of the president’s unpredictable approach to trade policy is that Fed easing is over for now, and that means higher Treasury yields than previously expected,” Capital Economics said.
The Nasdaq’s slide reflected a 3.2 per cent drop in Amazon after disappointing quarterly results. All 11 of the S&P 500 industry sectors were poised to settle lower, paced by consumer discretionary stocks.
The yield on the US 10-year note rose 5 basis points to 4.48 per cent near 4pm. Bitcoin was poised to end the trading week below $US96,000, failing to hold an overnight move that briefly saw it top $US100,000.
The US economy added 143,000 jobs in January, below expectations of at least 170,000. The jobless rate fell to 4 per cent. The report “has likely taken a March rate cut off the table”, Principal Asset Management’s Seema Shah said.
The monthly University of Michigan consumer sentiment index tumbled to 67.8, from 71.1, well below the consensus, 71.8. Consumers’ median one-year ahead inflation expectations surged to a 15-month high of 4.3 per cent, from 3.3 per cent.
In the text of a speech, Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler said given that “inflation remains elevated”, it made sense to hold rates at current levels for “some time”. She also said Kugler said there is “considerable uncertainty about the economic effects of proposals of new policies”.
Uber surged more than 6 per cent after billionaire Bill Ackman said his hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management owns 30.3 million shares of the rideshare company, valued by Bloomberg at roughly $US2 billion.
“We believe that Uber is one of the best managed and highest quality businesses in the world,” Ackman wrote in a post on X. “Remarkably, it can still be purchased at a massive discount to its intrinsic value. This favorable combination of attributes is extremely rare, particularly for a large cap company.”
