Monday, March 31, 2025 | 7:07 a.m.
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” is fast approaching, and stock markets around the world are tumbling Monday in advance of it.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was down 1.3% following one of its worst losses of the past couple of years on Friday. It’s on track to finish the first three months of the year with a loss of 6.4%, which would make this its worst quarter in nearly three years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 295 points, or 0.7%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.3% lower.
The U.S. stock market’s drops followed a sell-off that spanned the world earlier Monday as worries build that tariffs coming Wednesday from Trump will worsen inflation and grind down growth for economies. Trump has said he’s plowing ahead in part because he wants more manufacturing jobs back in the United States.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index dropped 4%. South Korea’s Kospi sank 3%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.5%.
Instead of stocks, which can be some of the riskiest possible investments, prices rose for things considered safer bets when the economy is looking shaky. Gold rose again to crest $3,150 per ounce and was heading toward another record.
Prices for Treasury bonds also climbed, which in turn sent their yields down. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.19% from 4.27% late Friday and from roughly 4.80% in January. Its yield has been falling as worries have built about tariffs. On Wednesday, the United States is set to begin what Trump calls “reciprocal” tariffs, which will be tailored to match what he sees is the burden each country places on his, including things like value-added taxes.
Even if Trump’s tariffs end up being less harsh than feared, the worry is that all the uncertainty created by them may cause U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending, which would hurt an economy that had closed last year running at a solid pace.
On Wall Street, some familiar names were leading the way downward for the U.S. stock market.
Tesla fell 7.3% to bring its loss for the year so far to 39.5%. It’s been the second-worst performer in the S&P 500 so far this year 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 been swarming Tesla showrooms as a result.
It’s a sharp drop-off following a surge of roughly 90% in the weeks following November’s Election Day, when the thought was that Musk’s close relationship with Trump could help the company’s finances. Tesla’s stock is back below where it was Nov. 5.
Other Big Tech stocks also helped to pull the market lower. They’ve been at the center of the recent sell-off, in large part because critics had been calling their prices too expensive for a while after their prices rose so much 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 4.7% to bring its loss for the year so far to 22.1%.
Stocks of companies that need customers feeling flush enough to spend were also among Monday’s worst performers, as they’ve been so far this year.
United Airlines lost 6.8%, and Delta Air Lines gave up 5.3%.
On the winning side of Wall Street was Mr. Cooper, which jumped 18.3% 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 7.8%.
In stock markets abroad, Thailand’s SET lost 1.5% after a powerful earthquake centered in Myanmar rattled the region, causing widespread destruction in the country, also known as Burma, and less damage in places like Bangkok.
Shares in Italian Thai Development, developer of a partially built 30-story high-rise office building under construction that collapsed, tumbled 27%. Thai officials said they are investigating the cause of the disaster, which left dozens of construction workers missing.
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AP Writers Junzhe Jiang and Matt Ott contributed.