Wall Street opens lower, hit by new tariff threats

NEW YORK, New York.- This Thursday, Wall Street opened in the red, with investors worried about the new tariff threats from US President Donald Trump , in addition to the effects caused by the very serious accident of a Boeing , a company that has not been able to recover after several disastrous years.

Ten minutes after the bell rang, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.49% to 42,656 points; the S&P 500 lost 0.16% to 6,012 points; and the Nasdaq also fell 0.14% to 19,588 points.

If yesterday the markets breathed a sigh of relief at the initial agreement between the US and China , which represented a truce in their tariff war , President Trump threw a bucket of cold water on the market last night by reminding everyone that there are many open fronts and that tariffs with other powers remain to be specified.

“We're negotiating with Japan, with South Korea. We're negotiating with many of them. We're negotiating with about 15 countries. But, as you know, we have over 150 (in the queue), and that's not possible (to manage),” Trump said last night when asked which countries the US will seal deals with next.

"At some point, we'll just send letters (to the countries). And I think they'll understand that, telling them, 'This is the agreement.' They can accept it or reject it. They don't have to use it. They don't have to buy from the United States, as I said," the president added upon arriving at the Kennedy Center in Washington to attend a musical.

On Thursday morning, a new incident also shook Wall Street: the crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London , which crashed into a residential area shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad Airport . Of the 242 passengers on board, only one has been found alive so far.

The incident has once again focused attention on the U.S. aircraft manufacturer 's recent safety record, sending the company's shares down 4.63% in early trading.

The crash is the first fatal accident involving a 787 Dreamliner, a twin-engine wide-body aircraft that began flying in 2009 and of which Boeing has built nearly 900 units. However, it comes as the company is trying to recover from the serious image problems it has suffered since the incidents involving the 737 Max, another smaller, narrow-body twin-engine model.

MarketWatch highlights that today's accident undermines the company's efforts to convince investors that it has a significant aircraft safety problem, in addition to several disagreements with federal authorities over regulatory issues. It emphasizes that while the company managed to overcome two and a half years of stock declines in April, it had already rallied 57% since then, so today's incident couldn't have come at a worse time.

On the corporate front, among the 30 largest Dow stocks, the biggest gainers today were Cisco (0.9%) and Microsoft (0.79%), while the losers, in addition to Boeing, were Nike (-1.22%) and Caterpillar (-1.16%).

Texas oil, meanwhile, is down 0.95% at this hour (67.50 a barrel) at a time when the drums of war are once again beating in Iran, which is in the crosshairs of a possible attack by Israel, with or without the backing of the United States.

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