US stocks decline amid Trump's 'confusion' over duties

Major U.S. stock indexes fluctuated between rising and falling at the beginning of the trading session on February 23, but then still went into negative territory amid the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal last week of some of U.S. President Donald Trump's duties and his adoption of new tariffs, Reuters and Bloomberg wrote.

S&P 500 40 minutes after the beginning of trading fell by 0.66%, Nasdaq Composite traded in the minus by 0.65%, Dow Jones at the time of publication lost more than the others - 1.13%, Russell 2000 - an index of shares of small and medium capitalization companies - went in the minus by 0.65%.

The decline, in particular, was demonstrated by the sectoral index of consumer goods and services of non-essentials S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary - minus almost 2.5%. Amazon shares lost 2.56%, Tesla - 2.19%. "Software" index S&P Software & Services fell a little more than 3%. Financial stocks are also in the negative: securities of private credit companies, including Ares Management lost almost 6%, KKR & Co - more than 7%.

In contrast, Nvidia shares are in slight plus - 0.68% - ahead of the company's quarterly report publication, "buy" them on February 23 was advised by analysts at Aletheia Capital, saying they are too cheap to ignore the company's securities before the disclosure of quarterly results, Bloomberg points out.

Also in the green zone is the health care sector (S&P 500 Health Care Index). Eli Lilly shares added more than 4% on the back of updated research data that showed that Novo's weight-loss drug candidate CagriSema was not as effective as Eli Lilly's competing drug, Barron's points out.

Meanwhile, spot gold prices jumped by more than 2.6% to $5226.2 per ounce in trading on February 23. Brent crude futures jumped by 0.9% to almost $72.4 per barrel amid preparations by the US and Iran for the third round of talks on the nuclear deal.

U.S. stocks and commodity prices show such dynamics on the background of "massive confusion" with U.S. duties. Brian Reynolds, chief market strategist at Reynolds Strategy, described the situation with tariffs on imported goods to the U.S. in an analytical note dated February 23, Bloomberg writes.

"There is profit taking in the [stock] market right now as traders realize that Friday's rally (the S&P 500 posted its best weekly gain since January on Feb. 21, with the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones also closing in the plus. - Oninvest) designed to provide relief may be premature," noted Thomas Hayes, chairman of private equity firm Great Hill Capital. "You can't bet against Trump. He wants to impose duties and he will find a way to do it," he added (quoted by Reuters).

"Trump's rapid policy reversal has reignited fears of retaliation, supply chain disruptions and weakening global demand - conditions that have traditionally favored non-yielding safe haven assets such as gold," said David Morrison, senior analyst at Trade Nation (quoted by MarketWatch).

On Friday, February 20, the US Supreme Court struck down a key piece of Trump's economic strategy, ruling that the US president exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose duties on goods from dozens of countries last April.

Following that decision, citing the Trade Act of 1974, Trump set a new global duty rate of 10%, raising it to 15% on Saturday, February 21. The legislative measure in question allows the US president to set import restrictions for up to 150 days, after which they must be approved by Congress.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor