Investing.com – Wall Street was lower on Monday as investors remained concerned about a global trade war.
The S&P 500 was down 20 points or 0.74% to 2,758.94 as of 9:38 AM ET (13:38 GMT) while the Dow composite decreased 235 points or 0.94% to 24,855.30 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite fell over 61 points or 0.79% to 7,685.17.
On Friday U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on 818 different Chinese goods worth $34 billion beginning on July 6. China promptly retaliated with a 25% tariff on U.S. goods, including soybeans and automobiles, also worth $34 billion.
The two largest economies in the world have been in a tit-for-tat over global trade tariffs in recent months as the two struggle to reconcile their trade differences. The tariffs have increased chances of a full-blown global trade war as the European Union and Canada have voted to retaliate against U.S. metal tariffs.
Jd.Com Inc Adr (NASDAQ:JD) was among the top gainers after the morning bell, rising 0.96% after Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) announced it was investing $550 million in the firm and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 0.75%.
Elsewhere technology and financial stocks were broadly down, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) falling 0.69%, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) down 0.89% and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) decreasing 0.53% while Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) slumped 1.35% and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) lost 1.38%.
In Europe stocks were down. Germany’s DAX fell 199 points or 1.53% while in France the CAC 40 decreased 73 points or 1.34% and in London, the FTSE 100 was down 23 points or 0.31%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 lost 50 points or 1.45% while Spain’s IBEX 35 slumped 112 points or 1.15%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.34% to $1,282.80 troy ounce while crude oil futures increased 0.20% to $64.98 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.06% to 94.50.