Stocks fell on “Liberation Day,” when President Donald Trump is set to unveil new tariffs on virtually all countries with which the U.S. has a trading relationship. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq $NDAQ Composite both dropped about 0.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 116 points, or 0.3%.
Tech shares were mainly lower ahead of the import-tax announcement. Nvidia $NVDA (NVDA) fell about 1.7% as of 10:12 a.m., Google $GOOGL’s parent Alphabet (GOOGL) dropped 0.7%, Microsoft $MSFT (MSFT) was down 0.5%, Apple $AAPL (AAPL) and Amazon $AMZN (AMZN) both declined about 0.4% and Meta $META (META) was off 0.3%. Tesla $TSLA (TSLA) fell after quarterly sales fell short of expectations. Palantir $PLTR (PLTR) gained 1.3%.
The long-awaited reciprocal tariffs will be “effective immediately” after Trump announces them starting at 4 p.m. EDT, the White House said Tuesday. On Monday, Trump told reporters that he’s settled on a tariff plan, but declined to reveal details. One option was a 20% duty on virtually all imports, the Wall Street Journal (NWSA) reported.
The White House has downplayed the possibility that Trump will make an announcement on additional sectoral tariffs on Wednesday, saying that while the president is still committed to them, he’ll roll them out later.
Employers added 155,000 jobs in March, more than expected, increasing from an upwardly revised 84,000 in February, the ADP (ADP) survey showed. Factory orders gained 0.6% in February, better than the consensus estimate but slowing from an upwardly revised 1.8% in January.
Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler is scheduled to speak at 4:30 p.m. EDT on “Inflation expectations and monetary policymaking.”
Some stocks to watch today:
Newsmax
Newsmax stock plunged 41% after surging 179% yesterday to $233. The conservative cable news channel opened at $14 on Monday in its post-IPO trading debut.
Tesla
Tesla’s stock fell about 2.1% after Elon Musk’s EV-maker delivered about 336,000 vehicles in the first quarter, a 13% decline from a year earlier and far below analysts expectations for 390,000. Deliveries from its Shanghai factory dropped 11.5% year-on-year in March to 78,828. Many rivals, except for Ford $F (F), have reported solid sales ahead of planned U.S. auto tariffs.