Wall Street makes sharp U-turn on Trump’s surprise tariff announcement

• Trump announces additional 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports.
• Defensive sectors rise sharply as flight-to-safety dominates markets.  
• Financials lose more than 2% amid sharp drop seen in T-bond yields.

Major equity indexes in the United States made a sharp U-turn in the last hour after US President Donald Trump announced that they will start imposing a 10% tariff on the remaining Chinese imports worth $300 billion starting September 1 and caused investors to move away from risk-sensitive stocks.

As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.75% on the day while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, which gained as much as 1.3% today, were erasing 0.7% and 0.35%, respectively.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the rate-sensitive Financials Index loses 2.2% on the day amid the more-than-6% fall witnessed in the 10-year US Treasury bond yield. Additionally, crude oil suffers heavy losses on Trump’s announcement and the Energy Index is also down more than 2%.  

On the other hand, the defensive Utilites and the Real Estate indexes add 1.15% and 0.5%, respectively, to confirm the dismal market mood.