US stocks opened mostly higher on Tuesday as investors weighed President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, with Federal Reserve minutes on deck.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) inched up roughly 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) jumped about 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) lagged, dropping 0.3% back from its latest record as drugmaker Amgen (AMGN) tumbled.
Markets were initially caught off guard by Trump’s pledge late Monday to slap big tariffs on the US’s biggest trading partners from his first day in office. His comments fired up trade war fears and dented Wall Street hopes that Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent would rein in any extreme moves by the new administration.
Wall Street appeared to take Trump’s move in its stride, with stocks mostly holding onto the Bessent-bounce gains on Monday that lifted the Dow to a record high. Debate focused on Trump’s record as president of using policy threats as a negotiation starting point, then not fully delivering on them.
Meanwhile, European carmaker stocks fell on the heels of Trump’s “America First” push. Nissan and Honda Motor (HMC), which have auto plants in Mexico, came under pressure. In currencies, the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar dropped sharply as the US dollar rallied.
In a more predictable vein, the release of Fed minutes later on Tuesday will be scoured for clues to the depth and pace of interest rate cuts in the coming year. Several policymakers have flagged they’re expecting to move more slowly than previously planned. The minutes will set the stage for the October reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, on Wednesday.
In individual stocks, Amgen fell almost 10% as weightloss data for its once-monthly GLP-1 injectable failed to impress Wall Street.
On the crypto front, bitcoin (BTC-USD) retreated to trade around $92,840 per token as its bid for the $100,000 milestone ran out of juice, The biggest digital currency has notched its longest losing streak since Trump’s election win boosted optimism around crypto.
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