US stocks fall ahead of Trump tariff announcement, Tesla drops
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Wall Street stocks fell early Wednesday ahead of a heavily-touted new tariff announcement by President Donald Trump while Tesla shares slid on weak first-quarter sales.
Trump has billed the announcements as "Liberation Day" tariffs and said the reciprocal levies are meant to address what he calls unfair treatment from US trading partners.
But stocks have been dragged down by uncertainty over what that will mean in practice.
About 40 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.3 percent at 41,868.54.
The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.4 percent to 5,611.83, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.4 percent to 17,378.70.
Earlier Wednesday, major indices fell around one percent or more.
"This is one of the most uncertain situations that I can recall," said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.
"Right now ... there's a market paralysis because nobody knows what's coming, and there's also a business paralysis," Sosnick said.
Meanwhile, Tesla shares were down 2.1 percent after sinking more than six percent at one point before recovering somewhat after Elon Musk's automaker reported disappointing first-quarter auto sales.