STORY: U.S. stocks ended little changed on Tuesday, with the Dow the biggest mover, edging down about a third of a percent, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed essentially flat.
President Donald Trump appeared to broaden his global trade war with the announcement on Tuesday that he would put a 50% tariff on imported copper. He added that long-threatened levies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals were coming soon.
Trump also said trade talks have been going well with the European Union and China and that he was only days away from sending a tariff letter to the EU.
But Shana Orczyk Sissel, founder and CEO of Banríon Capital Management, said she believes lagging trade talks signal a reluctance by the Trump administration to impose high tariffs.
“The fact that very few deals have gotten done since April, the fact that they continue to extend the deadlines for the tariffs to be implemented, tells me that they understand that the tariffs that are being threatened are not tariffs that are good for America, not good for the global economy, and they don't actually want to implement tariffs at that level.”
Still, miner Freeport-McMoRan appeared to benefit from the idea of steep tariffs on copper, with the stock ending up 2.5%.
Tuesday's other stock moves included Tesla, which gained more than 1% after recording its steepest single-day fall in roughly a month on Monday.
And shares of Moderna jumped nearly 9% after leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that new restrictions on access to COVID-19 vaccines pose a threat to public health.
