MANHATTAN (CN) — The carousel of tariffs — as well as exceptions and delays to tariffs — continue to cause markets to wobble, with the latest uncertainty causing Wall Street to post another losing week.
Gains and losses weren’t nearly as extreme as in recent weeks, but by the closing bell on Thursday it was still another losing week for Wall Street: the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 113 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq declined 81 points and 438 points, respectively. Markets were closed for Good Friday.
Tariffs and interest rates were the usual culprits, with recent comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warning of stagflation causing some jitters among investors.
“We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” Powell said at a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago, referencing the Fed’s two mandates of reducing inflation and increasing employment.
Powell’s comments caused markets to slip further and ruffled the feathers of President Donald Trump, who said this week that Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump also reportedly has been asking whether he could fire Powell, though the central banker has repeatedly said the president does not have the authority to fire him.
“The only certainty markets have is that this year will be more difficult than the last two years,” Gina Bolvin, president of Bolvin Wealth Management Group, said in a statement. “Powell wondered how long it would take to see tariffs’ effects on inflation and may be inclined to do nothing until we get more clarity on inflation. Investors have to be more patient.”
Such patience is becoming difficult, though. Inflation and employment data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this week showed consumer worries about unemployment at the highest level since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Manufacturing also has continued to slip. The Empire State manufacturing survey for April by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported a second consecutive month of contracting activity in the region.
While April’s survey managed to regain some of the steep losses from March, it still remained below the neutral point at -8.1 points. New orders also fell modestly, the central bank reported, while the average work week index fell to -9.1.
Similarly, the manufacturing survey from the Philadelphia Fed showed a drop in activity last month, declining to -26.4, its lowest reading since April 2023. Only 13% of firms surveyed showed an increase, and new orders fell from 8.7 in March to -34.2 in April.
One bit of good news came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s retail sales data for March, which surprised to the upside showing a 1.4% increase in sales. However, investors largely looked past that data.
Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group, noted in an investor’s note that the rise in retail sales is “clear evidence of a buying rush ahead of tariffs.” He pointed specifically to the 5.3% jump in auto sales and the 3.3% month-over-month increase in building material sales.
The proof in the pudding will be in coming months’ retail sales data, Boockvar wrote, adding that “all eyes [are] on that upper-income spender and how they process the declines in their stock portfolios and how that is expressed in their consumption.”