Investing.com - Wall Street struggled to break a third day of declines on Wednesday, after a drop in Chinese exports in March underlined the risks to the global economy from the escalation of the U.S.-China trade dispute.
All three indices held close to the unchanged mark by 9:53 AM ET (13:53 GMT) with the Dow Jones at 25,972.55 points by 9:35 AM ET (13:35 GMT), the S&P 500 at 2,884.48 points and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite holding at 7,970.18 points.
The market has been under pressure since President Donald Trump surprisingly announced that he intended to raise tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods from Friday.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer subsequently repeated the threat and a notice posted on the Federal Register on Wednesday confirmed the country will hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 to 25% effective Friday.
The move has left China’s trade negotiators, who arrive in Washington later today ahead of a fresh round of negotiations on Thursday and Friday, little leeway to make the concessions wanted by the U.S. without losing considerable face at home.
Despite President Trump’s insistence that Chinese companies will absorb the higher levies through their profit margins, American firms that have high revenue exposure to China, such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) or chipmakers AMD and Nvidia have all seen shares pummeled. Companies such Boeing (NYSE:BA) or Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), which are sensitive to Chinese investment spending and to any retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods that Beijing may levy, have also suffered.
The morning's earnings haven't been strong enough to reverse the trend.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) and TripAdvisor registered steep declines in their stocks as both companies missed quarterly revenue forecasts.
Also in the red, Lyft 's (NASDAQ:LYFT) shares sank on a wider-than-expected loss in its first quarterly report as a public company. The results may serve as a warning sign for those investors considering rival Uber’s (NYSE:UBER) stock market debut on Friday.
Not all the news was bearish as shares in Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) and Match Group (NASDAQ:MTCH) surged on better-than-expected quarterly figures.
Outside of equities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against six rival currencies, fell 0.2% to 97.24 by 9:55 AM ET (13:55 GMT), while the yield on the 10-year Treasury was little changed at 2.45%.
In commodities, gold futures edged forward $1.55, or 0.1%, to $1,287.15 a troy ounce, while crude oil inched up 5 cents, or 0.10% to $61.45 a barrel.