By Sinéad Carew and Harry Robertson
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Equities around the world fell and U.S. Treasury yields rose on Thursday as investors worried about global trade tensions after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened duties of 200% on European beverage imports if the EU does not remove U.S. whiskey surcharges.
Investors were also keeping an eye on wrangling over a possible, partial, U.S. government shutdown.
Thursday’s Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed U.S. producer prices (PPI) were unexpectedly unchanged in February. This was after Wednesday’s data showed U.S. consumer prices (CPI) rose more slowly than expected.
But investors worried that the cooling trend would not be sustainable as tariffs on imports raise prices in coming months.
“The February CPI and PPI reports were both better than expected, and show that the turn of the year spike in inflation was likely noise and not signal,” said Bill Adams, Chief Economist for Comerica Bank in a research note.
But he wrote that the inflation outlook depends more on government policies as tariffs, deportations and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) moves than “the backward-looking data releases right now.”
Trump’s increased tariffs on all U.S. steel and aluminium imports took effect on Wednesday, drawing swift retaliation from Canada and the European Union.
“The guidance out of the White House is so erratic that investors cannot absorb every news flash into their investment strategies,” said Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management.
On Wall Street, at 10:52 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 135.84 points, or 0.33%, to 41,212.42, the S&P 500 fell 22.11 points, or 0.41%, to 5,576.26 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 135.68 points, or 0.78%, to 17,510.56.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 3.58 points, or 0.43%, to 827.27.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.01% after rising 0.81% in the previous day’s session.
While the U.S. S&P 500 index is now down more than 5% for the year, European stocks are faring better with support from government spending plans for defence and a potential Ukraine peace deal. Year-to-date the STOXX index is up more than 6% year to date, despite slipping in recent weeks.
U.S. Treasury yields rose on Thursday, on concerns about the potential for higher inflation due to tariffs despite the cooler than expected inflation.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 1.2 basis points to 4.328%, from 4.316% late on Wednesday.
The 30-year bond yield rose 1.2 basis points to 4.6433% from 4.631% late on Wednesday.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, fell 0.2 basis points to 3.993%, from 3.995% late on Wednesday.
In currencies, the U.S. dollar was a mixed bag.
The euro was down 0.25% at $1.0859 but against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.22% to 147.91.
However, against the Swiss franc, the dollar strengthened 0.25% to 0.884.
After rallying on Wednesday on a larger-than-expected draw in U.S. gasoline stocks, oil prices slipped on Thursday as traders weighed macroeconomic concerns and demand versus supply expectations.
U.S. crude fell 0.55% to $67.31 a barrel and Brent fell to $70.59 per barrel, down 0.51% on the day.
Gold prices gained on Thursday, holding near all-time high levels, as elevated tariff uncertainty and bets on Federal Reserve policy easing kept bullion’s appeal strong.
Spot gold rose 1.26% to $2,968.99 an ounce. U.S. gold futures rose 0.94% to $2,966.60 an ounce.
(Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru, Harry Robertson in London and Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Sam Holmes, Sharon Singleton and Rachna Uppal)
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