NEW YORK — All three major Wall Street indexes ended Jan. 20 with their biggest one-day drops in three months, in a broad selloff triggered by concerns that fresh tariff threats from President Donald Trump against Europe could signal renewed market volatility.
The risk-off trade was pervasive, helping vault gold to fresh record highs, and pushing up debt costs with U.S. Treasuries wobbling under renewed selling pressure. Bitcoin, which can find favor when traditional markets waver, fell more than 3 percent.
All three U.S. equity benchmarks registered their worst one-day performance since Oct. 10, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite slipping below their 50-day moving averages.
The S&P 500 lost 143.15, or 2.06 percent, to end at 6,796.86, while the Nasdaq Composite gave up 561.07, or 2.39%, to 22,954.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 870.74, or 1.76 percent, to 48,488.59.
Tuesday was the first opportunity for U.S. investors to act on Trump’s weekend comments, given the market holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 19.
This included Trump saying additional 10 percent import tariffs would take effect on February 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Great Britain — all already subject to U.S. tariffs.
The tariffs would increase to 25 percent on June 1 and continue until a deal was reached for the U.S. to purchase Greenland, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Leaders of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, and Denmark have insisted the island is not for sale.
The reinjection of tariff threats into global markets harkens back to April’s “Liberation Day,” when Trump’s levies on global trade partners pushed the S&P 500 to near bear market territory.
The CBOE Volatility Index, also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, spiked to 20.09, its highest close since Nov. 24.
Trading volumes were also higher: around 20.6 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges on Tuesday, up from the 17.01 billion average for the last 20 trading days.
