US stocks tumbled on Thursday while the dollar sank, as investors bet that Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs would result in pain for the US economy.
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The S&P 500 was down 3.8 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 4.9 per cent, dragged down by an 8.5 per cent fall for index heavyweight Apple.
The dollar was down 1.7 per cent against a basket of rivals.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was down 6.8 per cent at $69.86 a barrel. WTI, the US benchmark, fell 7.1 per cent to $66.59 a barrel.
“The collapse is a loss of confidence in dollar-denominated assets in general,” said Francesco Pesole, a currency strategist at ING. “It’s a vote of no confidence on 100 days of Trump.”
Robert Tipp, PGIM’s head of global bonds, said markets were “very complacent” but now they are going into “spiral mode of trading toward a recession until they have probable cause to stop”.
The moves came after Trump said a levy of 10 per cent would apply to nearly all US imports from April 5, and that dozens of countries, including China, would be subject to further “reciprocal” tariffs from April 9.
European stocks were also hit on Thursday, with the continent-wide Stoxx Europe 600 index closing 2.6 per cent lower, led by a big sell-off in shares of export-focused companies.
“THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED, AND IS HEALING,” Trump wrote on Thursday on his Truth Social platform.
“THE PROGNOSIS IS THAT THE PATIENT WILL BE FAR STRONGER, BIGGER, BETTER, AND MORE RESILIENT THAN EVER BEFORE,” he added.
