Shares in U.S. exporters of everything from planes to tractors were volatile on Wednesday after China proposed duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals in retaliation to Trump administration tariff plans.
China was hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods with similar tariffs on U.S. goods even as Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the administration was involved in a “negotiation” with China rather than a trade war.
While the broader U.S. equity market recovered somewhat as the day wore on industrial stocks were still down significantly by late afternoon.
Shares in U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co were last down 2.5 percent making it one of the biggest drags on the S&P 500 though it was not immediately clear how much the tariffs would affect Boeing’s newer products. The United States exported $15 billion of aircraft to China in 2016, ranking the sector equally with agricultural products like soybeans, according U.S. trade data.
DowDuPont Inc said its agriculture unit could be hurt by the escalating conflict as there could be “price declines in the total market” for soybeans, with negative impacts on U.S. farmers. Its shares were last down 0.6 percent.
Investors in the S&P 500’s technology sector were also rattled since it has the biggest revenue exposure to China out of the benchmark’s 11 major sectors. Chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp, with a 1.7 percent drop, and Intel Corp, with a 1.0 percent decline, were among the biggest percentage losers in that sector.
Thai
Eng