By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Wall Street but edged higher in Europe on Friday amid uncertainty about U.S. President Donald Trump’s rapid policy initiatives, including spending cuts and tariffs, and Germany’s upcoming elections.
Trump has announced tariffs on several major U.S. trading partners since returning to the White House last month and unleashed a campaign to slash the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce, moves that have sparked worries among traders.
“The sell-off in the last couple of days has really been about the uncertainty with the pace of change in the government,” said Joshua Wein, portfolio manager at Hennessy Funds in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
“We all knew there would be spending cuts and layoffs of employees, but the pace at which that is happening has given the market a new type of uncertainty that we haven’t seen before.”
Data released on Friday showed U.S. business activity tumbled to a 17-month low, indicating that businesses and consumers were becoming increasingly rattled by the Trump administration’s policies.
The benchmark S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite Index fell on losses in industrials, consumer discretionary and energy stocks. The three main indexes were also set to end the week lower.
In Europe, shares have been volatile this week ahead of Germany’s election on Sunday. Europe’s broad Stoxx 600 climbed 0.45%, reversing two days of declines and heading towards a weekly gain.
The Dow dropped 0.85% to 43,799.85, the S&P 500 fell 0.57% to 6,082.56 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.69% to 19,823.69.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.23% to 881.69. The index is down 0.25% for the week. Overnight in Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 1.45% to its highest since November 8.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York and Alun John in London; Editing by Richard Chang)
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