(AP-Washington, DC) On Wall Street, stocks slumped Friday as worries flared about tariffs and inflation. The S&P 500 fell 0.9% and erased what had been a modest gain for the week. It’s one of the worse drops for the index so far in the young year, but it remains near its record set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 444 points, or 1%, and a sharp fall for Amazon after its latest profit report dragged the Nasdaq composite to a market-leading loss of 1.4%.
Treasury yields also climbed in the bond market after a discouraging report on Friday morning suggested sentiment is unexpectedly souring among U.S. consumers. The preliminary report from the University of Michigan said U.S. consumers are expecting inflation in the year ahead to hit 4.3%, the highest such forecast since 2023.
That’s a full percentage point above what consumers said they were expecting a month earlier, and it’s the second straight increase of an unusual amount. Economists pointed to the possibility of U.S. tariffs on a wide range of imported products, which President Donald Trump has proposed and could ultimately push up prices for U.S. consumers.
