Stocks fell deeper on Thursday as market participants look for more clarity of the extent of President Donald Trump's tariffs and how trade wars could affect the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 400 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite lost about 1.8% and 2.6%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Major averages have each lost more than 2% this week as the United States issued 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and added an additional 10% levy on goods from China. Canada and China have responded with their own tariffs on U.S. imports, while Mexico said it would announce its retaliatory measures this weekend.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted automakers a one-month tariff delay until April 2 for companies whose cars comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), sending shares of Ford
Trump on Thursday expanded the one month pause to include other USMCA complaint goods. About 50% of Mexican imports and 38% of Canadian imports are covered under the trade agreement, according to the White House.
"After three consecutive days of major tariff expansion or retraction, we have to ask: What was all this for? In Trump's statement announcing the delay, he didn't point to any specific further concessions from [Mexican President Claudia] Sheinbaum on either fentanyl or trade, even though there are some policy shifts he might reasonably have hoped to achieve," Tobin Marcus, analyst at Wolfe Research, wrote in a note Thursday.
"Again, we'll see as details continue to emerge, but for now it doesn't look like these three days of tariffs and uncertainty secured any policy wins. And given what's left behind after today's more expansive relief, we're not sure 25% tariffs on Canadian dairy products are going to make too much headway on drug trafficking," Marcus added.
The labor market showed some strength on Thursday, with Initial Unemployment Claims totaling a less-than-expected 221,000 for the week ended March 1, falling 21,000 from the previous week. The week's print was also about in-line with the four-week average of 224,250. Continuing jobless claims, which are tracked a week behind, rose by 42,000 from the prior reading to about 1.9 million.
However, job cuts rose to their highest level in nearly five years in February, according to a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Thursday. U.S. employers announced 172,017 layoffs for the month, according to the report, surging 245% from January and marking the highest monthly count since July 2020. This was also the highest total for February since the global financial crisis in 2009.
Beneath the headline, more than one-third of the month's print came from the White House's DOGE initiative, headed by billionaire Elon Musk; the firm totaled announced federal job cuts at 62,242 across 17 agencies.
"With the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] actions, as well as canceled Government contracts, fear of trade wars, and bankruptcies, job cuts soared in February," said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a release.
"It appears the administration wants to cut even more workers, but an order to fire the roughly 200,000 probationary employees was blocked by a federal judge," Challenger added. "It remains to be seen how many more workers will lose their Federal Government roles."
