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Wall Street stocks have lurched back and forth in a roller-coaster session for global financial markets, as volatility deepened while traders are on edge over how US tariff plans will develop.
The US’s S&P 500 (^GSPC) had major swings on Monday.
The index shot down by as much as 4% shortly after New York markets opened, before swinging sharply higher, peaking at about 2%, not long after.
The index then returned to negative territory, as the value slid by about 2% about an hour after opening.
The movements were reverberating across European markets – losses on the UK’s FTSE 100 (^FTSE) briefly eased, before sharpening again in line with the US’s benchmark index.
The FTSE 100 was deeply in the red by late afternoon, sitting at one-year lows.
Hopes that US President Donald Trump could delay his tariffs were raised on Monday, although he stood by the plans overnight and claimed other countries had been “taking advantage” of the US.
Some reports that he could suspend tariffs on all countries except China were swiftly dismissed by the White House on X, formerly Twitter.
The market movements nonetheless indicate investors have been pinning hopes on Mr Trump easing his tax policy or negotiating with trading partners.
Stock markets plunged overnight in Asia as the fallout from the tariff announcements enters its second week.
Asian stocks across the board sank to new lows after Mr Trump said he would not back down on his sweeping import taxes unless countries even out their trade with the US.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 (^N225) index, which tracks the country’s top 225 listed companies, closed 7.8% lower to hit its lowest level since about November 2021.
China’s Shanghai Composite (000001.SS), which tracks the movement of shares on the country’s main stock exchange, dropped more than 7%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index (^HSI) plunged by more than 13% in its worst day since 1997.
The UK’s top stock index, the FTSE 100, on Friday suffered its biggest single-day decline since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Trump said overnight on Monday that he did not want global markets to fall, but that he was not concerned about the major sell-off, adding: “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
Mr Trump, who spent the weekend in Florida playing golf, announced a range of tariffs on countries around the world last week, including a 10% “baseline” rate on all the US’s trading partners, which came into effect on Saturday.
China’s reciprocal 34% tariff on US exports to China will come into force on Thursday.