(Reuters) – U.S. stock futures fell sharply on Friday, signaling more losses on Wall Street, after China retaliated with fresh tariffs a day after the Trump administration’s sweeping levies knocked off $2.4 trillion from U.S. equities.
China’s finance ministry said it will impose additional tariffs of 34% on all U.S. goods from April 10 as a countermeasure to the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The benchmark S&P 500 dropped 4.8% on Thursday, its largest one-day percentage decline since June 2020, after Trump imposed a 10% tariff on most imports into the United States and much higher levies on dozens of other countries.
The index closed at 5,396.52 points, a more than seven-month low.
“We see 5,300 as the near-term target for the S&P 500, but if tariff uncertainty persists or negotiations with trading partners don’t go well, risks of downside through 5,000 become real,” strategists at UBS Global Research noted.
“The probability of U.S. stocks entering bear market is going higher.”
The tariffs have fed expectations for a global economic downturn and sharp price hikes across sectors in the world’s biggest consumer market.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled about 6% on Thursday, its biggest one-day drop since the height of the pandemic-fueled selloff in March 2020. The blue-chip Dow dropped 2.5% in the prior session and the index looked on course to confirm a correction, or a 10% drop from all-time highs.
By 6:12 a.m. ET, S&P 500 e-minis were down 67.5 points, or 1.24%. Nasdaq 100 E-minis fell 228 points, or 1.22% and Dow e-minis dropped 576 points, or 1.41%.
Bank stocks in the United States dropped further on Friday, with the sector under pressure globally as investors anticipated more interest rate cuts from central banks and a hit to economic growth from tariffs.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup all fell around 2% in premarket trading. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury notes was down to a six-month low of 3.95%. [US/]
The Labor Department report at 8:30 a.m. ET is expected to show U.S. job growth slowed in March amid mass firings of public sector workers to slash federal government spending and reluctance by businesses to increase hiring because of import tariffs.
Nonfarm payrolls likely rose by 135,000 jobs in March after rising 151,000 in the prior month.
Focus will also be on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at 11:25 a.m. ET for clues on the path of interest rates.
Traders continued to anticipate a more accommodative policy from the U.S. central bank, with money market futures pricing in cumulative rate cuts of 100 basis points by the end of this year, compared with about 75 bps a week earlier.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
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