NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Stocks posted weekly losses as investors were concerned about trade uncertainties and a possible economic recession.
For the week, the Dow erased 1 percent, the S&P 500 lost 1.4 percent, and the Nasdaq declined 1.8 percent.
China will impose additional tariffs on U.S. imports worth about 75 billion U.S. dollars in response to the newly announced U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese goods, the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council announced Friday.
Based on laws and approved by the State Council, a total of 5,078 U.S. products will be subject to additional tariffs of 10 percent or 5 percent.
The tariff hikes will be implemented in two batches and take effect at 12:01 p.m. Beijing Time on Sept. 1 and at 12:01 p.m. on Dec. 15, respectively, the commission said in a statement.
China's imposition of additional tariffs is a forced response to U.S. unilateralism and trade protectionism, the commission said.
The U.S. government announced on Aug. 15 that it will impose additional tariffs of 10 percent on Chinese goods worth about 300 billion dollars, effective on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, respectively, in two batches.
The news came at a time when the U.S. market has already been worrying about a possible economic recession contributed by trade tensions between the United States and its major trading partners.
Trump on Friday afternoon tweeted that his administration will raise the 25-percent tariff already placed on 250 billion dollars' worth of Chinese imports to 30 percent, and that the 10-percent tariff on the remaining 300 billion dollars' worth of Chinese goods scheduled for Sept. 1 will go up to 15 percent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a much anticipated speech on Friday at the central bank's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Contrary to what the market had hoped, Powell did not give a clear signal about further interest rate cuts. He pledged to "act as appropriate to sustain the expansion," a phrase that he has used for several times in recent months.
While Powell noted that U.S. economy has continued to perform well overall, he pointed out three factors that are weighing on the favorable outlook, namely slowing global growth, trade policy uncertainty, and muted inflation.
He said the global growth outlook has been deteriorating since the middle of last year. Trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown and in weak manufacturing and capital spending in the United States.
Powell talked at length about trade policy uncertainties. He said fitting trade policy uncertainty into the Fed's policy framework is a new challenge.
He said anything that affects the outlook for employment and inflation could also affect the appropriate stance of monetary policy, and that could include uncertainty about trade policy.
On the data front, the U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) was 49.9 in August, down from 50.4 in July and below the neutral 50.0 threshold for the first time since September 2009, according to IHS Markit on Thursday. Any reading below 50 signals a contraction.
Tim Moore, economics associate director at IHS Markit, said in a statement that August's survey data provides a clear signal that economic growth has continued to soften in the third quarter.
"The PMIs for manufacturing and services remain much weaker than at the beginning of 2019 and collectively point to annualized GDP growth of around 1.5 percent," said Moore.
"Manufacturing companies continued to feel the impact of slowing global economic conditions, with new export sales falling at the fastest pace since August 2009," he added.
The weak economic data added to market's fears for a U.S. economic recession.
In corporate news, Target reported GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations of 1.82 dollars in the second quarter of 2019, up 22 percent from the same period last year. Its total revenue reached 18.4 billion dollars, up 3.6 percent.
Its comparable sales, a key metric for retailers, grew 3.4 percent. It was driven by a 2.4-percent traffic growth.
Lowe's reported diluted quarterly earnings per share of 2.14 dollars and revenue of 21 billion dollars. Its comparable sales increased 2.3 percent. All three numbers exceeded Wall Street estimates.
Home Depot reported quarterly revenue of 30.8 billion dollars, up 1.2 percent from the same period last year. Its diluted earnings per share was 3.17 dollars. While its earnings beat expectations, its revenue fell short of estimates, according to Refinitiv data.
