
(Bloomberg) — Fast-changing news on tariffs flummoxed traders across asset classes Friday, shattering the calm spurred earlier by receding anxieties around the tech sector. A White House assertion that President Donald Trump plans to impose levies on China, Mexico and Canada this weekend sent the dollar up as stocks got hit.
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The S&P 500 erased a rally that approached 1%. The greenback hovered near session highs after the White House said Trump intends to move ahead with plans on Saturday to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and a 10% levy on China. The US also denied a news report that the president planned to delay the implementation by a month, which earlier drove the dollar marginally lower. The loonie lost 0.2% while the peso was little change. Oil fluctuated.
“Bulls have tried their best to keep calm and carry on through all the turbulence this week, but the pressure of uncertainty keeps them from peacefully grazing on stocks,” said Max Gokhman at Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions. “Going into the weekend it seems like even staff closest to the Oval Office don’t have all the details and so some bulls are going back to the barn to sit out a likely storm.”
The slide in equities came after a relatively posistive start to the day, with the market briefly erasing losses that were driven by concern that a cheap artificial intelligence-model from Chinese startup DeepSeek could make valuations of the booming technology tough to justify. The market barely budged after the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge came in line with estimates, though it still remained well above the central bank’s 2% target.
Traders have had to contend with “headline ping-pong similar to 2017/2019 as various outlets publish various unsourced stories which the administration quickly refutes, leading to wild whipsaw price action,” said Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets.
The S&P 500 fell 0.5%. The Nasdaq 100 lost 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.6%. President Trump was due to meet with Nvidia Corp….
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