Wall Street sinks to 1-month low on trade, growth fears
WASHINGTON: US stocks tumbled to one month lows on Friday after a sharp escalation in trade tensions and a tepid July jobs report renewed fears of slowing economic growth and also raised bets of further interest rate cuts this year. President Donald Trump’s threat on Thursday to slap more tariff on imports from next month rattled global markets and drove investors to safe-havens like US Treasuries and the Japanese yen.
“The tariff threat was a splash of cold water, the market had become accustomed to the current state of trade negotiations, but a hike in tariffs wakes you up to the fact that the trade war is still with us,” said Michael Antonelli, market strategist at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. Technology companies were the hardest hit, down 1.75 percent, weighed by iPhone maker Apple Inc and chipmakers. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index slipped 1.28 percent, while shares of Apple fell 2 percent. “If the trade war rhetoric is going to continue to ramp up, then the Fed is going to have to continue to fight that with monetary policy,” Antonelli said.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department report showed US job growth slowed in July and manufacturers slashed hours for workers. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 164,000 jobs last month, in line with expectations, and the economy created 41,000 fewer jobs in May and June than previously reported. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes were on pace to post their fifth straight session of losses in a week that saw the Federal Reserve play down hopes of further monetary easing after cutting interest rates for the first time in a decade.
Hopes that the Fed would be more accommodative to counter the impact of the bruising trade war had helped Wall Street’s main indexes hit record highs last month. Traders of short-term interest-rate futures are now pricing in an about 80 percent chance of a rate cut next month, and an about 70 percent chance of a further reduction in December, according CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
At 12:33 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 185.97 points, or 0.70 percent, at 26,397.45, the S&P 500 was down 23.62 points, or 0.80 percent, at 2,929.94. The Nasdaq Composite was down 111.34 points, or 1.37 percent, at 7,999.78. The S&P 500 slipped below its 50-day moving average, a closely watched indicator of short-term momentum, during the session. The defensive real estate, utilities, and consumer staples sectors were the only S&P sectors trading higher.
The second-quarter earnings season is in full swing, with about 74 percent of the 380 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far beating profit estimates, according to Refinitiv data. NetApp Inc slumped 21.9 percent after the data storage equipment maker lowered its forecast for the first quarter and 2020, blaming a weakening macro environment. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 2.01-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 2.39-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded nine new 52week highs and 10 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 14 new highs and 157 new lows.