(AP) — President Donald Trump’s fast-approaching “Liberation Day” sent stock markets swinging sharply worldwide on Monday.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% in another roller-coaster day, after being down as much as 1.7% during the morning. The reversal helped the index shave its loss for the first three months of the year to 4.6%, making it the worst quarter in two-and-a-half years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average also swerved higher after erasing an initial loss, and it climbed 417 points, or 1%. Slides for Tesla, Nvidia and other influential Big Tech stocks, though, sent the Nasdaq composite down 0.1%.
Such neck-twisting turns have become routine for the U.S. stock market recently because of uncertainty about what Trump will do with tariffs — and by how much they will worsen inflation and grind down growth for economies. Wall Street’s swings followed a sell-off that spanned the world earlier Monday as worries built about the effects of the tariffs that Trump says will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index dropped 4%. South Korea’s Kospi sank 3%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.6%.
Instead of stocks, prices strengthened for things considered safer bets when the economy is looking shaky. Gold rose again to briefly crest $3,160 per ounce.
Prices for Treasury bonds also climbed, which in turn sent their yields down. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.21% from 4.27% late Friday and from roughly 4.80% in January.
On Wednesday, the United States is set to begin what Trump calls “ reciprocal ” tariffs, which will be tailored to match what he sees as the burden each country places on his, including things like value-added taxes. Much is still unknown, including exactly what the U.S. government will do on “Liberation Day.”
At Goldman Sachs, economists expect Trump to announce an average 15% reciprocal tariff. They also raised their forecast for inflation and lowered it for U.S. economic growth for the end of the year.
They now see a 35% chance of recession in the next year, up from an earlier forecast of 20%, “reflecting our lower growth forecast, falling confidence, and statements from White House officials indicating willingness to tolerate economic pain,” according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle.
If the April 2 tariffs end up being less onerous than investors fear — maybe Trump includes no additional tariff increases on China, for example — stocks could rally. But if they end up being a worst-case scenario, which gets businesses so fearful that they start cutting their workforces, stocks could sink much further.
Of course, there’s also the chance that April 2 does little to clear the uncertainty. It could end up being a “stepping stone for further negotiations” instead of a “clearing event” for the market, according to Michael Wilson and other strategists at Morgan Stanley.
“This means policy uncertainty and growth risks are likely to persist — it’s a question of to what degree,” Wilson wrote in a report.
One worry is that even if Trump’s tariffs end up being less harsh than feared, all the uncertainty created by them alone could cause U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending, which would hurt an economy that had been running at a solid pace to close last year.
Either way, some familiar names were among Wall Street’s hardest hit on Monday.
Tesla fell 1.7% to bring its loss for the year so far to 35.8%. It’s been one of the year’s worst performers in the S&P 500 in large part because of fears that the electric-vehicle maker’s brand has become too intertwined with its CEO, Elon Musk.
Musk has been leading U.S. government efforts to cut spending, making him a target of growing political anger, and protests have swarmed Tesla showrooms as a result.
Other Big Tech stocks also struggled. They’ve been at the sell-off’s center in large part because of criticism that their stock prices had become too expensive. Critics pointed to how their prices rose faster than their already quick-growing profits in recent years.
Nvidia, which has ridden the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology to become one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, fell 1.2% to bring its loss for the year so far to 19.3%.
On the winning side of Wall Street was Mr. Cooper, which jumped 14.5% after the home loan servicer said it’s being bought by mortgage company Rocket in an all-stock deal valued at $9.4 billion. The deal comes just weeks after Rocket acquired real estate listing company Redfin, and Rocket’s stock fell 7.4%.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway rose 1.2% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. The parent of GEICO and other companies said earlier this year it’s sitting on $334.2 billion in unused cash. Such a large amount could indicate Buffett, who’s famous for buying when prices are low, may see little worth purchasing in a stock market that critics have called too expensive.
Newsmax surged 735% in a dizzying first day of trading for the stock of the news company. Its price was so volatile that trading of its stock was briefly halted a dozen times through the day.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 30.91 points to 5,611.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 417.86 to 42,001.76, and the Nasdaq composite fell 23.70 to 17,299.29.
As they readied to leave work Monday, some workers at the Food and Drug Administration were told to pack their laptops and prepare for the possibility that they wouldn’t be back, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.
Nervous employees — roughly 82,000 across the nation’s public health agencies — waited to see whether pink slips would arrive in their inboxes. The mass dismissals have been expected since Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week a massive reorganization that will result in 20,000 fewer jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services. About 10,000 will be eliminated through layoffs.
The email sent to some at the FDA said staffers should check their email for a possible notice that their jobs would be eliminated, which would also halt their access to government buildings. An FDA employee shared the email with AP on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to disclose internal agency matters.
Kennedy has criticized the department he oversees as an inefficient “sprawling bureaucracy” and said the department’s $1.7 trillion yearly budget “has failed to improve the health of Americans.” He plans to streamline operations and fold entire agencies, such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, into a new Administration for a Healthy America.
Anand Parekh, who worked at the department during the Bush and Obama administrations and is now the chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center, wonders what kind of analysis Kennedy has done to arrive at job cuts. He questioned how closely Kennedy could examine each of the agencies after spending just over a month as health secretary.
“One would hope that as they made these cuts, they really did a deep dive,” Parekh said. “It’s not quite clear from a transparency perspective how they got from where they were to here.”
On Friday, dozens of federal health employees working to stop infectious diseases from spreading were told they’d be put on leave.
Several current and former federal officials told the AP that the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy was hollowed out that night. Some employees posted on LinkedIn about the office being empty. And an HIV and public health expert who works directly with the office was emailed a notice saying that all staff had been asked to leave. The expert spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity over fears of losing future work on the issue.
Several of the office’s advisory committees — including the National Vaccine Advisory Committee and others that advise on HIV/AIDs response — have had their meetings canceled.
“It puts several important efforts to improve the health of Americans at risk,” said Dr. Robert H. Hopkins Jr., the former chair of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, an advisory committee of the office.
An HHS official said the office is not being closed but that the department is seeking to consolidate the work and reduce redundancies.
Also, as of Monday, a website for the Office of Minority Health was disabled, with an error message saying the page “does not exist.”
Beyond layoffs at federal health agencies, cuts have begun at state and local health departments as a result of an HHS move last week to pull back more than $11 billion in COVID-19-related funds.
Local and state health officials are still assessing the impact, but some health departments have already identified hundreds of jobs that stand to be eliminated because of lost funding, “some of them overnight, some of them are already gone,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
As the trade wars launched by U.S. President Donald Trump continue to escalate, all eyes are on Wednesday.
Trump has repeatedly called April 2 “Liberation Day,” with promises to roll out a set of tariffs, or taxes on imports from other countries, that he says will free the U.S. from a reliance on foreign goods. To do this, Trump has said he’ll impose “reciprocal” tariffs to match the duties that other countries charge on U.S. products.
But a lot remains unknown about how these levies will actually be implemented. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump would unveil his plans to place reciprocal tariffs on nearly all American trading partners on Wednesday, but maintained that the details are up to the president to announce.
Since taking office just months ago, Trump has proven to be aggressive with tariff threats, all while creating a sense of whiplash through on-again, off-again trade actions. And it’s possible that we’ll see more delays or confusion this week.
Trump has argued that tariffs protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition, raise money for the federal government, and provide leverage to demand concessions from other countries. But economists stress that broad tariffs at the rates suggested by Trump could backfire.
Tariffs typically trickle down to the consumer through higher prices, and businesses worldwide also have a lot to lose if their costs rise and their sales fall. Import taxes already in effect, coupled with uncertainty around future trade actions and possible retaliations, have already roiled financial markets and lowered consumer confidence while enveloping many with questions that could delay hiring and investment.
Here’s what you need to know.
What will happen on April 2?
Details around Trump’s plans remain uncertain. Reciprocal tariffs could take the form of product-by-product duties, for example, or broader “averages” imposed across all goods from each country — or perhaps something else entirely. The rates could reflect what other countries charge as well as their value-added taxes and subsidies to domestic companies.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told “Fox News Sunday” that the tariffs could raise $600 billion annually, which would imply an average rate of 20%.
Trump has talked about taxing the European Union, South Korea, Brazil, and India, among other countries, through these levies. On Monday, Leavitt said Trump had been presented with several proposals by his advisers. She added that the president would make a final decision, but right now was not contemplating any country-wide exemptions from the tariffs.
Previously delayed import taxes could take effect very soon. Trump’s month-long delay for many goods from Canada and Mexico, for example, is set to elapse in early April. Earlier this month, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the extension granted for Mexican imports covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement runs through April 2. But further confirmation around a specific date has not been issued since.
Which of Trump’s tariffs are about to start?
Trump has said he will place a 25% tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela, which includes the U.S. itself, starting Wednesday — in addition to imposing new tariffs on the South American country.
His 25% tariffs on auto imports will start being collected Thursday, with taxes on fully-imported cars kicking off at midnight. The tariffs are set to expand to applicable auto parts in the following weeks, through May 3.
The White House says it expects to raise $100 billion in revenue annually from these new duties, but economists stress this trade action will upend the auto industry’s global supply chain and lead to higher prices for consumers.
Which tariffs have already gone into effect?
Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports beginning Feb. 4, a levy he later doubled to 20% from March 4 onward. And China has hit back with retaliatory tariffs covering a range of U.S. goods, including a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products and a 10% tariff on crude oil from the U.S. that took effect Feb 10. China also imposed tariffs of up to 15% on key U.S. farm exports starting March 10.
Trump’s expanded steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect earlier this month, too. Both metals are now taxed at 25% across the board, with Trump’s order to remove steel exemptions and raise aluminum’s levy from his previously-imposed 2018 import taxes taking effect March 12.
Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners, have also faced steep tariffs. Earlier this month, Trump implemented a partial, month-long delay of his 25% tariffs on both countries, delaying taxes for auto-related imports as well as goods that comply with the 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agreement until early April.
But other imports are still levied, as well as a lower 10% duty on potash and Canadian energy products. In response to these tariffs, as well as the new steel and aluminum import taxes, Canada has rolled out a series of countermeasures amounting to billions of dollars on U.S. goods. Mexico, meanwhile, has yet to formally impose new levies — signaling it may still hope to de-escalate the trade war, although the country previously promised retaliation to Trump’s actions.
Can we expect additional tariffs down the road?
Even more tariffs from Trump are likely, with the president also threatening import taxes on products like copper, lumber, pharmaceutical drugs, and computer chips.
And many countries have promised retaliatory measures — if not already imposed them, like Canada. Trump has said he won’t negotiate with other countries on Wednesday’s tariffs until after they’re imposed, though he has said his 25% taxes on auto imports would be permanent.
In response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, the European Union announced measures on U.S. goods worth some 26 billion euros ($28 billion) — to target steel and aluminum products, but also American beef, poultry, bourbon, motorcycles, peanut butter, and jeans. The 27-member bloc had intended to roll out this retaliatory trade action in two phases, on Tuesday and April 13, but later said it would delay it until mid-April, without giving a specific date.
We’ll potentially see more retaliatory announcements this week, particularly if Trump confirms more details of sweeping reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday.
Markets around the world continue to sink on fears about President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies, and investors keep plowing money into gold, with futures hitting another record high Monday.
Trump’s latest round of tariffs rolls out Wednesday, which Trump has been calling “Liberation Day.”
Interest in buying gold can rise sharply in times of uncertainty, as anxious investors seek safe havens for their money. Gold prices have been spiking as Trump’s tariff policies have started an international trade war that’s roiled financial markets and threatened to reignite inflation for families and businesses alike.
If trends continue, analysts say gold’s price could continue to climb in the months ahead. But precious metals are also volatile assets, so the future is never promised.
Here’s what to know.
What’s the price of gold today?
On Monday, the going price for New York spot gold hit a record $3,122.80 per troy ounce — the standard for measuring precious metals, which is equivalent to 31 grams. That’s about $886, or 40%, higher than a year ago.
The price of spot gold is up 19% since the start of 2025, per the data firm FactSet. By contrast, the stock market has tumbled. The benchmark S&P 500 is down 4.5% this year as even blue chip stocks have faded.
Gold futures also reached a record in trading Monday, hitting close to $3,157.40 an ounce.
Why is the price of gold going up?
A lot of it boils down to uncertainty. Interest in buying gold typically spikes when investors become anxious, and there’s been a lot of economic turmoil in recent months.
The heaviest uncertainty lies with Trump’s escalating trade war. The president’s on-again, off-again new levy announcements and retaliatory tariffs from some of the nation’s closest traditional allies have created a sense of whiplash for both businesses and consumers, who economists say will foot the bill through higher prices.
Confidence began to slide at the start of the year for both U.S. households and businesses due to fears of inflation and tariffs. Those worries seem to only be worsening, as U.S. consumer confidence has been eroding for several months.
Over the last year, analysts have also pointed to strong gold demand from central banks around the world amid geopolitical tension, including wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Is gold worth the investment?
Advocates of investing in gold call it a “safe haven” — arguing the commodity can serve to diversify and balance your investment portfolio, as well as mitigate possible risks down the road. Some also take comfort in buying something tangible that has the potential to increase in value over time.
Still, experts caution against putting all your eggs in one basket. And not everyone agrees that gold is a good investment. Critics say gold isn’t always the inflation hedge many say it is — and that there are more efficient ways to protect against potential loss of capital, such as derivative-based investments.
The Commodity Futures Trade Commission has also previously warned people to be wary of investing in gold. Precious metals can be highly volatile, the commission said, and prices rise as demand goes up — meaning “when economic anxiety or instability is high, the people who typically profit from precious metals are the sellers.”
If you do choose to invest in gold, the commission adds, it’s important to educate yourself on safe trading practices and be cautious of potential scams and counterfeits on the market.