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Latest US-China trade spat hits US stocks
NEW YORK, July 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Wall Street’s four-day winning streak
ended with a thud Wednesday as another round of US-China trade tensions
prompted a global stocks selloff.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.9 percent to close the day at
24,700.45
The broad-based S&P 500 shed 0.7 percent to end at 2,774.02, while the
tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.6 percent at 7,716.61.
President Donald Trump’s administration late Tuesday launched the process
to impose fresh tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese goods, an
escalation only days after tit-for-tat duties on $34 billion in goods came
into effect.
Beijing vowed to retaliate to the latest move, calling the US action
“totally unacceptable.”
Those developments pushed US stocks into the red throughout the session,
ending a four-day streak of gains.
Adding to the unease was a public clash between Trump and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel at the NATO summit in Brussels after the US leader called on
allies to boost their defense spending.
The list of big decliners included exporters to China, such as Caterpillar,
which fell 3.2 percent, Boeing, down 1.9 percent and Deere & Company, down
2.2 percent.
Petroleum companies Chevron and ConocoPhillips lost 3.2 percent and 2.3
percent following a big fall in oil prices.
Twenty-First Century Fox slumped 4.0 percent after increasing its takeover
offer for the 61 percent of the Sky TV group it does not own, valuing the
company at o24.5 billion ($32.5 billion).
American Airlines plummeted 8.1 percent after it trimmed its estimate for
revenue per seat mile for the second quarter.
BSS/AFP/HR/1020