Stocks moved lower in early trading Monday as investors digested the latest developments on the global trade front.
The benchmark S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite were recently down 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2% Stocks are coming off a winning week, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite entering this week at record levels while the Dow was less than 0.5% away from its first new high since December.
White House officials over the weekend said that tariffs would be reimposed on leading trading partners on August 1 if agreements aren’t reached before then. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this morning in an interview with CNBC that several deals are expected in the next few days. The so-called reciprocal tariffs, which roiled financial markets in early April when they were first announced, had been expected to go back into effect on July 9 at the end of a 90-day pause.
Meanwhile President Donald Trump said late Sunday in a Truth Social post that countries “aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS” would face an additional 10% tariff. The BRICS group includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
Tesla (TSLA) was the big decliner in early trading Monday, with shares falling more than 7% after CEO Elon Musk, who has been a vocal critic of the massive tax and spending bill that Congress approved last week, announced over the weekend he is creating a new political party. Musk, who until recently ran the government’s Department of Government Efficiency, has engaged in a public feud with Trump over the last several weeks, raising concerns among investors about the potential impact on Tesla.
Other mega-cap technology stocks were mixed this morning. Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOG) fell slightly, while Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Broadcom (AVGO) inched higher.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which affects borrowing costs on all sorts of loans, was at 4.37%, up from 4.34% at the end of last week and at its highest level in two weeks. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, rose 0.1% to 97.34, after hitting its lowest level since early 2022 last week.
Bitcoin was at $108,100, down from an overnight high of $109,700. The digital currency isn’t far from its all-time high of around $112,000.
Gold futures were down 0.7% at $3,320 an ounce this morning, while West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, rose 0.6% to $67.40 per barrel.
