Wall St selloff sparked by tariff onslaught, weak payrolls
Just hours before the tariff deadline on Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing duties on U.S. imports from countries including Canada, Brazil, India and Taiwan, even as countries scrambled to seek ways to strike better deals.
Data showed U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in July while the prior month's report was revised sharply lower, pointing to a sharp moderation in the labor market.
"Everybody's quite shocked at how large the downward revisions were for both May and June. The upside is that the unemployment rate did not spike meaningfully," said Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab.
The report perked up bets for a September interest rate cut to 80.0%, according to CME's FedWatch tool.
BeiChen Lin, senior investment strategist at Russell Investments, said job growth has been mostly concentrated in previously understaffed sectors like healthcare and social assistance. "The breadth of job creation has steadily declined in recent months."
At 11:39 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab fell 573.05 points, or 1.30%, to 43,557.93, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab lost 93.99 points, or 1.48%, to 6,245.40 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab lost 412.60 points, or 1.95%, to 20,709.85.
Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were on track for their worst single-day performance since April 21.
The CBOE Volatility index (.VIX), opens new tab, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, jumped to a near six-week high and was last up 19.41 points.
Further weighing on markets, Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab dropped 8% after the company's growth in its cloud computing unit failed to impress investors, widely lagging its AI-focused rivals Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab that reported on Wednesday.
The stock weighed heavily on the consumer discretionary index (.SPLRCD), opens new tab, which led the sectoral losses by falling 3.5%. Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes were trading in the red.
Technology (.SPLRCT), opens new tab and communication services (.SPLRCL), opens new tab indexes fell 1.9% and 1.45%, respectively.
Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab posted its current-quarter revenue forecast well above Wall Street estimates, but CEO Tim Cook warned U.S. tariffs would add $1.1 billion in costs over the period. The stock edged 2% lower.
Most major megacap stocks fell, with Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab down 1.6, Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab lost 0.8%, Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab down 2.3%, and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab losing 1.6%.
Financials (.SPSY), opens new tab shed 2%, with Coinbase Global (COIN.O), opens new tab sinking 15.6% after the crypto exchange reported a drop in adjusted profit for the second quarter.
Bucking the trend, Reddit (RDDT.N), opens new tab surged 21.9% after it reported quarterly results that exceeded Street expectations, boosted by an AI-focussed advertising strategy and strong user engagement.
Meanwhile, Trump said on Friday the Federal Reserve's board should assume control if the central bank's chair, Jerome Powell, continues to refuse to lower interest rates.
Powell, despite pressure from Trump to cut rates, has indicated the central bank was in no rush to do so.
The day's sharp losses put the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq on track for weekly losses, offsetting the week's earlier momentum on signs of economic resilience, AI boost, and key U.S. trade agreements with top partners such as the European Union.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2.74-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 3.58-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted seven new 52-week highs and 26 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 13 new highs and 183 new lows.
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