Wall Street falls in a manic day after briefly dropping more than 10% below its record

Yahoo

12-03-2025

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market fell further Tuesday following President Donald Trump's latest escalation in his trade war, briefly pulling Wall Street 10% below its record set last month. And like it's been for most of the past few weeks, the market's slide on Tuesday was erratic and dizzying.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8%, but only after careening between a modest gain and a tumble of 1.5%. The main measure of Wall Street's health finished 9.3% below its all-time high after flirting with the 10% threshold that professional investors call a 'correction."
Other indexes likewise swung sharply through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 478 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite ended up slipping 0.2%.
Such head-spinning moves are becoming routine in what's been a scary ride for investors as Trump tries to remake the country and world through tariffs and other policies. Stocks have been heaving mostly lower on uncertainty about how much pain Trump is willing for the economy to endure in order to get what he wants.
And moves by Trump and comments by his White House on Tuesday didn't clarify much.
Stocks began tumbling in the morning after Trump said he would double planned tariff increases on steel and aluminum coming from Canada. The president said it was a response to moves a Canadian province made after Trump began threatening tariffs on one of the United States' most important trading partners.
Trump has acknowledged the economy could feel some 'disturbance' because of the tariffs he's pushing. Asked on Tuesday just how much pain Trump would be willing for the economy and stock market to take, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to give an exact answer. But she said earlier in the press briefing that 'the president will look out for Wall Street and for Main Street.'
For his part, Trump said earlier on social media, 'The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.'
Stocks pared their losses later in the day, even briefly eliminating them altogether, after Ontario's premier said he had agreed to remove the surcharge on electricity that had enraged Trump so much. Trump would afterward say that he would 'probably' return the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to 25%.
After that brief perk higher, though, stocks would go on to slide again into the end of trading.
Tuesday's swings followed more warning signals flashing about the economy as Trump's on -and- off -again rollout of tariffs creates confusion and pessimism for U.S. households and businesses.
Such tariffs can hurt the economy directly by raising prices for U.S. consumers and gumming up global trade. But even if they end up being milder than feared, all the whipsaw moves could create so much uncertainty that U.S. companies and consumers freeze, which would sap energy from the economy.
Delta Air Lines' stock lost 7.3% after it said it's already seeing a change in confidence among customers, which is affecting demand for close-in bookings for its flights. That pushed the airline to roughly halve its forecast for revenue growth in the first three months of 2025, down to a range of 3% to 4% from a range of 7% to 9%.
Southwest Airlines also cut its forecast for an important underlying revenue trend, and it pointed specifically to less government travel, among other reasons, including wildfires in California and 'softness in bookings and demand trends as the macro environment has weakened.'
Its stock nevertheless rallied 8.3% after the airline said it would soon begin charging some passengers to check bags, among other announcements.
Oracle dropped 3.1% after the technology giant reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts' expectations.
Helping to keep the market in check were several Big Tech stocks, which steadied a bit after getting walloped in recent months. Elon Musk's Tesla rose 3.8%, for example, after Trump said he would buy a Tesla in a show of support for 'Elon's 'baby.''
Tesla's sales and brand have been under pressure as Musk has led efforts in Washington to cut spending by the federal government. Tesla's stock is down 42.9% for the young year so far.
Other Big Tech superstars, which had led the market to record after record in recent years, also held a bit firmer. Nvidia added 1.7% to trim its loss for the year so far to 19%. It's struggled as the market's sell-off has particularly hit stocks seen as getting too expensive in Wall Street's frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
Because Nvidia, Tesla and other Big Tech stocks have grown so massive in size, their movements carry much more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes than any other company.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 42.49 points to 5,572.07. The Dow dropped 478.23 to 41,433.48, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 32.23 to 17,436.10.
In stock markets abroad, which have mostly been beating the United States so far this year, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia.
Stocks rose 0.4% in Shanghai and were nearly unchanged in Hong Kong as China's annual national congress wrapped up its annual session with some measures to help boost the slowing economy.
In the bond market, Treasury yields clawed back some of their tumbles in recent months. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.28% from 4.22% late Monday. In January, it was nearing 4.80%, before it began sinking on worries about the U.S. economy.
A report released Tuesday morning showed U.S. employers were advertising 7.7 million job openings at the end of January, just as economists expected. It's the latest signal that the U.S. job market remains relatively solid overall, for now at least, after the economy closed last year running at a healthy pace.
___
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.