Wall St stocks end lower as investors look for tariff clarity
The S&P 500 ended Tuesday's choppy session slightly lower as investors yearned for clarity on U.S. trade policy after President Donald Trump's latest tariff threats dampened hopes around talks with some trade partners.
Wall Street equities had sold off sharply on Monday after Trump warned of sweeping new tariffs on goods from key trading partners such as Japan and South Korea and a range of smaller countries starting in August.
Tuesday's moves in U.S. indexes were less pronounced than in the previous session but the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq spent the session flitting between red and green as investors looked for direction from tariff headlines.
Trump appeared to broaden his global trade war with the announcement on Tuesday that he would put a 50% tariff on imported copper while he said that long-threatened levies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals were coming soon.
The U.S. president said trade talks have been going well with the European Union and China but added that he was only days away from sending a tariff letter to the EU.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 4.50 points, or 0.07%, to end at 6,225.48 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.16 points, or 0.02%, to 20,415.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166.80 points, or 0.38%, to 44,239.56.
While the bigger indexes were little changed, the Russell 2000 small-cap index, outperformed.
Source : Reuters
