Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Stock Market Today: Wall Street Takes Trump's Latest Tariff Threats in Stride, and Indexes Rise
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 2 months ago on
February 10, 2025

Trader Peter Mancuso works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP/Richard Drew)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NEW YORK — Wall Street is taking President Donald Trump’s latest threat on tariffs in stride, on the whole, and U.S. stocks are rising on Monday.

The S&P 500 was up 0.6% in morning trading, coming off a losing week that was bookended by worries about how potential tariffs could push up inflation and threaten the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 137 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher as Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks led the way.

The bond market also remained relatively firm, with Treasury yields ticking lower after Trump said over the weekend that he will impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, as well as other import duties later in the week.

Fear around tariffs has been at the center of Wall Street’s moves recently, and experts say the market likely has more swings ahead. The price of gold, which often rises when investors are feeling nervous, climbed again Monday to top $2,930 per ounce and set another record. But Trump has shown he can be just as quick to pull back on threats, like he did with 25% tariffs he had announced on Canada and Mexico, suggesting they may be merely a negotiating chip rather than a true long-term policy.

Trump, of course, has already gone ahead with 10% tariffs on China. Those will likely affect Wall Street by cleaving winning industries from losing ones, but they won’t necessarily drag the entire market lower, according to Michael Wilson and other strategists at Morgan Stanley. A big, market-wide impact would be more likely “if we were to see sustained tariffs on a range of countries including 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.”

US Steel, Aluminum Producer Stocks Jumped

Stocks of U.S. steel and aluminum producers jumped Monday, banking on expectations tariffs could help their profits, while the overall S&P 500 index remained relatively calm.

Nucor rose 5.5%, Cleveland-Cliffs jumped 11.6% and Alcoa climbed 3.8%.

Some companies that use lots of such metals were mixed. General Motors fell 0.9%, Ford Motor lost 0.5% and Whirlpool rose 0.5%.

In the meantime, earnings reports from big U.S. companies are also helping to drive trading.

McDonald’s climbed 4.9% even though it reported profit and revenue for the end of 2024 that was just shy of analysts’ expectations. Investors focused instead on better-than-expected strength for its restaurants outside the United States, particularly in the Middle East, Japan and other markets with licensed McDonald’s locations.

Big Tach Has Strongest Forces

Big Tech stocks were some of the strongest forces pushing the S&P 500 higher, including a 3.7% climb for Nvidia. It had come under pressure last month after a Chinese upstart upended Wall Street’s artificial-intelligence boom by saying it had developed a large language model that could perform like the world’s best without having to use the most expensive, top-flight chips.

Despite the development by DeepSeek, big U.S. companies have said in recent weeks that they’re still planning to plow billions of dollars into their AI endeavors. That’s calmed worries that DeepSeek could have turned off a huge spigot of spending for the industry, at least for now.

Such gains helped offset a 7.8% drop for Incyte after the biopharmaceutical company reported weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.46% from 4.50% late Friday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with short-term interest rates, fell by a similar amount. It eased to 4.25% from 4.29%.

The Fed cut its main interest rate sharply at the end of last year, but traders have been sharply curtailing their expectations for more reductions in 2025, in part because of fears that higher inflation from tariffs could tie its hands. While lower rates can give a boost to the economy and investment prices, they can also goose inflation higher.

Fed Chair to Speak to Congress

Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be offering testimony before Congress later this week, where he could offer more hints about what the Fed is thinking. In December, it sent financial markets sharply lower after indicating it may cut rates only twice this year. Now, some traders and economists think it may not cut at all.

Reports are also coming this week on inflation, which could further drive the Fed’s actions. On Wednesday, economists expect a report to show prices for eggs, gasoline and other living costs for U.S. consumers were overall 2.9% higher in January than a year earlier.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was virtually unchanged after Japan’s government reported a record current account surplus last year.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

FDA Launches Recall for Thousands of Coca-Cola Cans

DON'T MISS

Fresno Unified Faces Teacher Uproar Over Slashing Designated Schools

DON'T MISS

Wilmer Flores’ 3-Run Homer in the 9th Inning Propels Giants to Victory Over Reds

DON'T MISS

Environmental Attorneys Want $2 Million From City of Fresno

DON'T MISS

Lululemon Theft in Fresno Leads to Arrests of Two Suspects

DON'T MISS

Fresno Man Convicted of Stealing Thousands of Catalytic Converters

DON'T MISS

Trump Challenges California on Transgender Parental Notification

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Fatal Crash Ejects Driver, Who Is Then Struck by Car

DON'T MISS

Fresno Police to Conduct DUI Patrols on Saturday

DON'T MISS

Fresno Mayor Praises a State Bill That Would Speed In-Fill Housing

UP NEXT

Fresno Unified Faces Teacher Uproar Over Slashing Designated Schools

UP NEXT

Wilmer Flores’ 3-Run Homer in the 9th Inning Propels Giants to Victory Over Reds

UP NEXT

Environmental Attorneys Want $2 Million From City of Fresno

UP NEXT

Lululemon Theft in Fresno Leads to Arrests of Two Suspects

UP NEXT

Fresno Man Convicted of Stealing Thousands of Catalytic Converters

UP NEXT

Trump Challenges California on Transgender Parental Notification

UP NEXT

Fresno County Fatal Crash Ejects Driver, Who Is Then Struck by Car

UP NEXT

Fresno Police to Conduct DUI Patrols on Saturday

UP NEXT

Fresno Mayor Praises a State Bill That Would Speed In-Fill Housing

UP NEXT

Prosecutor Seeks 18-Month Suspended Sentence for Depardieu if Convicted of Sexual Assault

Environmental Attorneys Want $2 Million From City of Fresno

6 hours ago

Lululemon Theft in Fresno Leads to Arrests of Two Suspects

6 hours ago

Fresno Man Convicted of Stealing Thousands of Catalytic Converters

6 hours ago

Trump Challenges California on Transgender Parental Notification

7 hours ago

Fresno County Fatal Crash Ejects Driver, Who Is Then Struck by Car

7 hours ago

Fresno Police to Conduct DUI Patrols on Saturday

7 hours ago

Fresno Mayor Praises a State Bill That Would Speed In-Fill Housing

8 hours ago

Prosecutor Seeks 18-Month Suspended Sentence for Depardieu if Convicted of Sexual Assault

8 hours ago

Middle East Latest: Israeli Strikes Kill a Family of 6 and a Hamas Spokesman in Gaza

8 hours ago

Alleged Leader of MS-13 Street Gang on the East Coast Is Arrested in Virginia

8 hours ago

FDA Launches Recall for Thousands of Coca-Cola Cans

A Coca-Cola distributor has initiated a voluntary recall affecting more than 10,000 cans of the popular soft drink after discovering potenti...

5 hours ago

5 hours ago

FDA Launches Recall for Thousands of Coca-Cola Cans

5 hours ago

Fresno Unified Faces Teacher Uproar Over Slashing Designated Schools

6 hours ago

Wilmer Flores’ 3-Run Homer in the 9th Inning Propels Giants to Victory Over Reds

6 hours ago

Environmental Attorneys Want $2 Million From City of Fresno

Two men, Hector Garcia (left), 29, and Gavin Degroot, 23, were arrested in Fresno on Thursday, March 27, 2025, after stealing over $6,000 worth of clothing from Lululemon, with the stolen items later recovered from a community member's lawn. (Fresno PD)
6 hours ago

Lululemon Theft in Fresno Leads to Arrests of Two Suspects

6 hours ago

Fresno Man Convicted of Stealing Thousands of Catalytic Converters

President Donald Trump speaks with Gov. Gavin Newsom after arriving at the Los Angeles Airport, on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. The Trump administration will investigate whether a new California law banning parental notification requirements in schools violates federal policy. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
7 hours ago

Trump Challenges California on Transgender Parental Notification

fresno
7 hours ago

Fresno County Fatal Crash Ejects Driver, Who Is Then Struck by Car

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend