Wall Street drops to 3.2% due to escalating trade dispute between US and China

The S & P 500 recorded its sharpest weekly decline since December after Washington lifted tariffs on Chinese products worth $ 200 billion from 10% to 25%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 501.84 points, or 1.9%, while the S & P 500 was down 2.1%. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, was down 3.2%.

The shares of technology companies, including chip makers, manufacturing giants and retailers, are highly exposed sectors in China.

The group of technology companies "FAANG" – Facebook, Amazon.com, Apple, Netflix Inc. and Alphabet – lost between 1.7% and 5%.

The Chinese Ministry of Finance announced on Monday that it plans to impose tariffs ranging from 5% to 25% on 5,140 US goods as of June 1st, after the United States has increased tariffs on several products of the Asian giant last week.

"It's becoming more complicated and costly for the global economy and until the situation disappears, the markets will be under pressure," said Art Hogan, market strategist at National Securities in New York. .

For its part, the MSCI Emerging Market Currencies Index erased all gains for 2019 on Monday, before escalating trade tensions between the United States and China which strikes the world markets.

The index, which includes 25 currencies – including the South Korean won, the Taiwanese dollar and the yuan – fell 0.7% that day, its biggest drop since October.

Numerous financial institutions such as JPMorgan and UBS have reduced their exposure to risky badets, while Citi has reported cash outflows from emerging market currencies for the third consecutive week.

The MSCI EM FX Index is on track for its fourth straight month of losses after rising 2.6% in January.

Europe and Asia

As operators are disconcerted by the evolution of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, European stock markets are down 1.5%.

In this context, Madrid lost 0.8%, Frankfurt lost 1.5%, Paris lost 1.3%, Milan lost 1.1% and London 0.6%.

At the same time, the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed lower on Monday, down for the fifth time in a row, in a market worried about the renewed trade tensions between the United States and China.

The Nikkei index of 225 main stocks lost 0.7% (-153.64 points) to close the session at 21,191.28 points.

The Japanese square was withdrawn from 4.11% last week, reduced to four sessions after 10 days of vacation due to the abdication of Emperor Akihito and other holidays .