REUTERS/Thomas Peter
President Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
It was a volatile day for US markets. Indexes swung sharply after China's Ministry of Commerce announced a 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of US exports Wednesday morning. Among the 106 affected products were some of the biggest American exports to China, including aircraft, autos, and soybeans.
Here's the scoreboard:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 24,264.92 +231.56 (+0.96%)
S&P 500: 2,643.63 +29.18 (+1.12%)
AUD/USD: 0.7715 +0.0031 (+0.40%)
ASX 200 SPI futures: 5,764.0 +21.0 (+0.37%)
- US stocks climbed back up after getting clobbered Wednesday morning. The Dow Jones industrial average erased a more than 500 point loss, led by gains in shares of Apple and IBM.
- Still, some aircraft companies didn't completely recover. Boeing - the single largest US exporter to China - shed more than 3% at its lows. It was down 1.50% at 3:39 p.m. ET.
- Prices of soybeans, which were listed as products affected by Chinese tariffs on the US, also took a hit. They closed at $10.17, down around 2%.
- Bonds and currencies fluctuated throughout the day as jittery investors threw their money toward safe-havens, but remained relatively calm. US Treasury yields edged up to 2.78%.
- Major cryptocurrencies fell sharply, with the digital currency market losing more than $7 billion in just a half an hour.
- Facebook admitted that up to 87 million users could have been affected by an information leak to the data firm Cambridge Analytica. Shares of the company's stock are down 0.65%.
Here is tomorrow's economic calendar:
- Chinese banks will be closed in observance of Tomb Sweeping Day.
- Australia's trade numbers will be released.