NEW YORK: Wall Street nosedived for a second straight day on Friday (Apr 4), confirming the Nasdaq Composite was in a bear market and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was in a correction, as an escalating global trade war spurred the biggest losses since the pandemic.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted their largest two-day declines since the emerging COVID-19 caused global panic during US President Donald Trump’s first term. For Thursday and Friday, the Dow was down 9.3 per cent, the S&P 500 10.5 per cent and the Nasdaq 11.4 per cent.
Fallout from Trump’s sweeping tariffs stoked fears of a global recession, wiping trillions of dollars of value from US companies. Highlighting growing panic among investors, the CBOE Volatility Index, or Wall Street’s fear gauge, closed at its highest level since April 2020.
Since late on Wednesday, when Trump boosted tariff barriers to their highest level in more than a century, investors have dumped stocks, fearing both the new US economic reality and also how US trading partners might retaliate by steepening their own trade barriers.
The Nasdaq slid on Friday 962.82 points, or 5.82 per cent, to 15,587.79, confirming the tech-heavy index was in a bear market compared to its record closing high of 20,173.89 on Dec 16.
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