March 28 (UPI) — U.S. stocks ended the week Friday with a major selloff amid fears of a new round of tariffs, inflation and declining consumer sentiment.
All of the major indexes are at the lowest levels in months. The weekly declines were the Dow Jones Industrials at 0.96%, Standard & Poor’s 500 at 1.53% and the Nasdaq Composite Index at 2.59%.
The DJIA closed down 715.80 points, or 1.69%, at 41,583.90 compared with its high of 45,014.04 on Dec. 4. This is an 8.2% drop.
The S&P declined 112.37, or 1.97%, to 5,580.94, the lowest since September and ending the week down for the fifth time in the last six weeks. The record was 6,144.15 on Feb. 19 with a 10.1% decline since then.
The Nasdaq Composite slumped 481.04, or 2.7% to close at 17,322.99. Its high was 20,173.89 on Dec. 16. The decline is 16.5% with a drop of 10% considered a “correction.”
The tech-heavy Nasdaq is on pace for a more than 8% monthly decline, which would be the most for a month since December 2022.
The following tech stocks declined: Amazon 4%, Alphabet 5%, Apple 3%.
Meanwhile, the price of gold rose $27.10 to a record 3,118 as investors shifted to the safety of precious metals. One year ago it was 2,238.40.
May futures for a barrel of West Texas Intermedia crude oil was $69.04, a drop of 0.88.
One good economic sign is the unemployment rate was steady at 4.1% in February.
Also, the 10-year bond yield moved down to 4.25%, its lowest level since January as investors went to treasuries.
Investors are fearing a return to inflation and tariffs, including a 25% one on imports from cars and trucks set for midnight Wednesday. Also, President Donald Trump plans to announce next week reciprocal tariffs, including on lumber, pharmaceuticals and computer ships.
Trump on Friday said he is open to coming up with tariffs deals but they likely would be after Wednesday.
“It’s possible if we can get something for the deal – but, you know, we’ve been taken advantage of for 40 years, maybe more. It’s just not going to happen anymore. But yeah, I’m certainly open to it,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled to Florida for the weekend.
President Donald Trump expressed some openness to cutting tariff deals with other countries as he plans to unveil new taxes on imports in the coming days, but he suggested any deals would be made after the tariffs go into place on April 2.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Trump on Friday that his government will implement retaliatory tariffs. The European Union is identifying concessions to the Trump’s administration to reduce the reciprocal tariffs from him.
Automaker stock prices slumped. Stelantis declined 4.06% to 11.33 as the Netherlands-based company includes foreign brands Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Fiat and Peugeot, as well as U.S.-based Chrysler.
Tesla, which is primarily made in the United States, was down 3.51% to 263.55, compared with a record 479.86 in December. Ford dropped 1.82% to 9.72, and General Motors went down 1.1% to 46.68.
“The market is getting squeezed by both sides,” Scott Helfstein, head of investment strategy at Global X told CNBC. “There is uncertainty around next week’s reciprocal tariffs hitting the major exporting sectors like tech alongside concerns about a weakening consumer facing higher prices hitting areas like discretionary.”
Helfstein said investors are struggling to understand the Trump administration’s new policies.
But he added: “Despite today’s sell-off and broader market volatility of the past few weeks, there have not been big inflows into money markets. It seems like a lot of investors are trying to ride this out.”
The University of Michigan determined its final March analysis reflected the highest long-term inflation expectations since 1993. It came in at 57, down from a 64.7 reading in the prior month.
The current inflation rate is 2.8% as eggs increased by 58.8% in a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 though it is a fraction of 23.7% in June 20 before the stock market crash in October that year that led to the Great Depression.
The Federal Reserve on March 19 held interest rates steady amid recession fears. The Fed’s Open Market Committee kept its borrowing rate targeted in the range of 4.25%-4.5% since about December. Fed officials added another half percentage point cut could be seen through the year.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow index forecasts US gross domestic product will fall 2.8% in the first quarter, compared with a previous projection of a 1.8% decline released two days ago.
Friday’s core personal consumption expenditures price index rose 2.8% in February. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective numbers of 2.7% and 0.3%.
