NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks mostly dipped Wednesday as investors awaited US inflation data later this week, while digesting President Donald Trump’s signals that upcoming tariffs might be more targeted than expected.
Minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2 percent at 42,683.46, while the broad-based S&P 500 Index slid 0.1 percent to 5,771.30.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.4 percent at 18,201.24.
On Tuesday, Trump’s comments on tariffs offered hope that a worst-case scenario could be avoided as his April 2 deadline to announce reciprocal levies tailored to each US trading partner looms.
Wall St wavers after weak consumer confidence data; focus on tariffs
He told Newsmax: “I’ll probably be more lenient than reciprocal, because if I was reciprocal, that would be very tough for people.”
But he added that he did not want to have too many exceptions.
The market is “kind of taking a pause here,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.
“We’re going to have to wait and see how things unfold or if anything new comes out of the White House,” he added.
He expects that “volatility is going to settle in a bit between now and April 2nd when we get more news on tariffs.”
For now, markets are keeping an eye on whether GDP data will be revised Thursday, and on a key gauge of inflation due Friday.
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