Stocks Rise Ahead of Trump Tariff Announcement

US stocks swung higher Wednesday ahead of President Trump's announcement of tariffs on what he calls "Liberation Day."

• The S&P 500 rose 0.7% Wednesday after eliminating an early loss of 1.1%. It's had a pattern this week of opening with sharp drops only to finish the day higher.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6%.
• The Nasdaq composite gained 0.9%.

Tesla swung from a sharp loss in the morning to a gain of 5.3% to help pull the market higher, the AP reports. It dropped following a report that it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the first three months of the year than it did in last year's first quarter, but rose after a report from Politico that Trump has told others that Musk will step back from his government role in coming weeks.

Treasury yields also veered from lower to higher following a better-than-expected report on the job market. The report from ADP Research said employers, excluding the government, accelerated their hiring last month by more than economists estimated. It could be an encouraging signal for the more comprehensive jobs report coming Friday from the US. government. Economists expect it to show overall hiring slowed in March from February.

• On Wall Street, Newsmax fell 77.5% in its third day of trading to give back some of the meteoric gains from its debut at the start of the week. It surged 735% Monday and then another 179% on Tuesday. Several airlines, meanwhile, flew higher to recover some of the sharp losses taken recently on worries that tariff-weary customers will fly less. United Airlines climbed 4.7%.

Financial markets around the world have broadly been shaky lately because of uncertainty about what Trump will announce Wednesday. He has said he wants tariffs to make the global system more fair and to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from other countries. But tariffs also threaten to grind down growth for the US and other economies, while worsening inflation when it may be stuck above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. One of the hopes that's helped push upward on the US stock market recently is the possibility that at least the worst of the uncertainty around tariffs may have already passed.

story continues below

"We do not know how long the previously enacted tariffs and any future tariffs will remain in force, but we believe peak tariff uncertainty may soon be behind us," according to Kurt Reiman, head of fixed income Americas, and other strategists at UBS Global Wealth Management. "Much of the work the administration set out to achieve will have been put in place, and there are numerous potential offramps available." (More stock market stories.)