Stock market today: Live updates

S&P 500 futures fell early Wednesday as President Donald Trump’s tariffs took effect. The S&P 500 was inches away from a bear market, under pressure in recent days from the worst selling since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.

Futures tied to the benchmark index were down 0.4%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 248 points, or 0.6%. Nasdaq-100 futures bucked the trend, rising slightly.

U.S. tariffs of 104% on Chinese imports took effect shortly after midnight. China has vowed to fight back against these levies.

Duties on a raft of other countries also took hold. Canada reconfirmed Tuesday plans to put into effect 25% retaliatory tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles. This includes vehicles that aren’t compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, in addition to non-Canadian and non-Mexican content of USMCA-compliant fully assembled vehicles brought into Canada from the U.S.

“Our base case is tariffs will, over time, drift lower than today’s level but stay off the charts – at the highest levels of our lifetimes,” Piper Sandler analyst Andy Laperriere wrote on Tuesday. “They are more likely to go higher in the near-term, though there could be some deals (probably minor ones) in the near term, too.”

Traders took some solace in the fact that China didn’t immediately retaliate, however. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield was up 11 basis points at 4.37%.

Anxiety around the rollout of the tariffs has fueled a four-day rout for stocks. The volatility continued on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 up more than 4% at one point before ending the day with a loss of 1.6%. The 30-stock Dow climbed 3.9% at its high for the day but ultimately fell 0.8% at the end of trading. The broad market index is nearly 19% off its record high.

Over the course of four days, the Dow has lost more than 4,500 points, while the S&P 500 has sustained a 12% loss. The Nasdaq Composite is down more than 13% in that period.