Stock market today: Dow plummets 800 points, S&P 500, Nasdaq sink over 2% as Trump's Greenland threats clobber stocks
US stocks got clobbered on Tuesday in Wall Street's worst day since October, returning to the kind of tariff-fueled routs that plagued markets last spring after President Trump reignited trade-war tensions with Europe over his ambitions to take control of Greenland.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 1.8%, or over 800 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell by about 2%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) retreated over 2.4% as investors fled riskier bets on the heels of a losing week for Wall Street stocks.
Tuesday's decline has fully wiped out year-to-date gains for the Nasdaq and S&P 500.
Wall Street was pricing in the risk of a full-on US-EU trade war just as earnings season gets going.
Over the weekend, Trump said eight NATO countries would face extra import duties of 10% unless the US got a deal on a purchase of the Danish territory. On Monday, he doubled down on his pursuit of Greenland even as the EU discussed $108 billion in retaliatory tariffs. It could also deploy an “anti-coercion instrument” with a potential fallout of some $8 trillion for US assets.
Trump threatened on Monday to put a 200% import tariff on France's wines after its leader, Emmanuel Macron, turned down the US president's invitation to join his "Board of Peace."
When asked on Tuesday how far he is willing to go to acquire Greenland, President Trump answered, "You'll find out."
Treasury yields jumped to their highest levels in four months as a sell-off in Japanese bonds added pressure on US debt. In other assets, the dollar (DX-Y.NYB) fell to a two-week low as the "Sell America" trade returned, and haven seekers drove gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) to yet more record highs. Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) led Big Tech stocks down as investors rotated out of AI-linked equities, highlighting ongoing concerns over a market bubble.
Focus is now turning to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump is set to hold meetings with other countries over the Greenland crisis. He is scheduled to give his key address on Wednesday.
Investors are also bracing for a busy earnings slate, with results from Netflix (NFLX) due after market close on Tuesday. The streaming giant's stock edged up after it amended its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) studio to an all-cash offer on Tuesday.
When asked whether the idea of taking control of the Panama Canal is back on the table, President Trump replied, “I don’t want to tell you that,” later adding, “sort of.”
Trump had expressed interest in reclaiming the canal last year and has recently pursued the acquisition of Greenland.
He made the remarks during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
Watch President Trump's press briefing here.
Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:
United Airlines (UAL) is on deck to report fourth quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, a week after rival Delta (DAL) saw premium and business travelers boost its results.
Chicago-based United is expected to post Q4 operating revenue of $15.37 billion, slightly higher than in Q3 and up 4.6% compared to a year ago, per Bloomberg consensus estimates. United is expected to post adjusted earnings per share of $2.95, with available seat miles coming in at 83.13 billion and a load factor (the percentage of available seats filled by passenger) of 82.1%.
Investors will look for guidance from United on where its main, premium, and corporate business is headed.
Read more here.
President Trump said tariffs against European countries were the \\"fastest\\" and \\"easiest\\" way to achieve his goal of acquiring Greenland.
\\"What we're doing now is the best, the strongest, the fastest, the easiest, the least complicated,\\" said Trump during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
When asked how far the US is willing to go to acquire Greenland, President Trump answered, \\"You'll find out.\\"
Trump said the US has \\"a lot\\" of meetings on Greenland scheduled at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Trump is expected to travel to Davos tonight.
Stocks were headed toward their worst day in two months on Tuesday as the markets digested Trump's threats of fresh tariffs against European countries in order to obtain control of the Arctic territory.
Watch President Trump's press briefing here.
Netflix (NFLX) is set to report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday as investors are focused on the pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
The streaming giant is expected to report revenue of $11.96 billion, per Bloomberg consensus data. That's in line with what the company forecasted. In the fourth quarter of last year, the company posted revenue of $10.25 billion.
Adjusted earnings per share are expected to come in $0.55. That's against Netflix's forecasted expectation of $5.45, or $0.55 following the 10-for-1 stock split in mid-November.
Wall Street expects revenue of $45.1 billion for the full fiscal year, alongside adjusted earnings of $2.52.
For the first quarter, Wall Street expects revenue to hit $10.54 billion with adjusted earnings of $0.66.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed calmness on Tuesday after President Trump threatened tariffs against European countries in connection with his pursuit of Greenland.
“This is the same kind of hysteria we heard on April 2 — there was a panic,” said Bessent during a press briefing in Davos, where the World Economic Forum is taking place this week.
“What I’m urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out. As I said on April 2, the worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States.”
Stocks sold off last April after President Trump announced tariffs against a slew of countries, which were later walked back substantially.
US stocks and bonds sold off on Tuesday, with yields on the 10-year Treasury rising to 4.28%, while the 30-year bond yield increased to 4.91%.
The sell-off followed Trump’s threat of new tariffs on European countries aimed at gaining control of Greenland.
\\"What President Trump is threatening on Greenland is very different than the other trade deals,\\" he added.
Apple (AAPL) shares fell Tuesday to mirror a decline in Big Tech names, as Citi (C) analyst Atif Malik cut his price target on the stock to $315 from $330, citing a surge in cost of memory chips used in the company's consumer devices.
\\"Rising memory pricing is the biggest concern on investors’ mind,\\" Malik said in a note to clients Monday, when trading was closed for the MLK Day holiday.
Still, Malik reiterated his Buy rating on the stock and noted the benefits of its recent AI deal with Google (GOOG). The analyst also said he believes Apple could ship millions of foldable $2,000 iPhones this year.
Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré reports:
Gold (GC=F) and silver (SI=F) jumped to fresh records on Tuesday as President Trump doubled down on his pursuit of Greenland, threatening new tariffs on Europe.
Gold futures climbed above $4,700 per ounce while silver surged to $95 per ounce, extending a string of record highs that has been building for months.
Precious metals have been on a blistering run, driven by strong central bank demand for gold, growing questions over Federal Reserve independence, mounting fiscal spending and US intervention in Venezuela, along with rising tensions with Iran.
\\"The debasement trade is on fire and precious metals are the outlet,\\" Robin Brooks, a senior fellow in the global economy and development program at the Brookings Institution, said on X on Tuesday morning.
Read more here.
Netflix (NFLX) shares rose less than 1% Tuesday, defying a broader pullback in US stocks, as the streaming giant is set to report quarterly results after the bell on Tuesday.
Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg expect the company to report earnings per share of $0.55 for the fourth quarter, which would mark a roughly 28% increase from the previous year. Analysts project Netflix's revenue will jump nearly 17% to about $12 billion. They anticipate the company to have added 10.9 million streaming subscribers in the period.
Netflix shares are up just 3% over the past year, lagging the S&P 500's 14% rise. The stock dropped in October after the company's third quarter financial results missed estimates and has continued to suffer amid concerns over its planned $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which it amended Tuesday.
Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi breaks down how the WBD deal is muddying Netflix's outlook here.
Issuing a series of comments and social media posts overnight that doubled down on his threats to take over Greenland, President Trump set the stage for his trip to Davos, Switzerland, where he's expected to meet with foreign leaders and deliver a speech widely expected to test the alignment of the US and European countries.
Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul reports:
\\"It's going to be a very interesting Davos,\\" Trump joked to reporters at nearly midnight on Monday as he traveled back to Washington ahead of his trip to the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting, where, Trump added, \\"I have a lot of messages\\" to deliver.
Trump again said the US would take control of Greenland one way or another and floated a 200% tariff on French wines if President Emmanuel Macron doesn't join a new initiative the president is leading around Gaza.
The president's speech in Davos is set for Wednesday, just one moment in the days ahead when observers will be watching whether, as Capital Economics put it in an analysis, \\"cooler heads will prevail before things get out of hand in either markets or geopolitics.\\"
Trump is expected to meet one-on-one with foreign leaders and CEOs, and in addition to various other speeches and meetings set for Davos, European Union leaders are set to convene Thursday in Brussels for a second meeting to map out their response to Trump's Greenland threat.
Read more here.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the market sell-off is a buying opportunity for many AI names as investors take a \\"risk-off\\" approach to the markets amid US trade tensions with the EU over the future of Greenland.
That includes some of the biggest laggards in Tuesday's trading session, including Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Palantir (PLTR), CrowdStrike (CRWD), Nebius (NBIS), Apple (AAPL), Palo Alto (PANW), Google (GOOG), and Tesla (TSLA).
\\"The back and forth war of words between Trump and the EU will give investors another opportunity to own the tech winners and despite the bears always trying to yell fire in a crowded theater,\\" Ives, who is quite bullish on the sector, wrote in a note to clients, adding, \\"the AI Revolution is still in the early days of playing out.\\"
Ives believes the US is in the midst of the \\"4th Industrial Revolution\\" that will see its \\"next stage of growth in 2026.\\"
Tom Essaye, Sevens Report Research founder, told Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid that \\"every sort of decent dip should be viewed as a buying opportunity,\\" though he said to wait for a further dip of 3% to 5% from the recent highs to jump in.
\\"Unless you are concerned that Trump will willingly enact policies that will slow the economy or hurt the markets ... then you have to focus on earnings, on underlying solid economic growth, on the fact that the Fed is still likely to cut rates, probably in the first half of this year, and that AI enthusiasm is still alive and well and as long as those things are true,\\" Essaye said.
The tech sector ETF (XLK) was down by about 1.3% in the early trading session.
Tech led a tumble in US stocks at the market open as President Trump's further ignition of trade-war tensions with Europe overnight sent investors fleeing riskier bets.
The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) retreated 1.8%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) sank 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell roughly 1.2% — a drop of more than 600 points — as markets reopened for a holiday-shortened trading week after MLK Day.
3M Company (MMM) stock sank about 4% on Tuesday morning as the Minnesota-based company beat earnings expectations but faced a broader market sell-off on the prospect of new tariffs over Greenland.
On an adjusted basis, stripping out significant one-time costs, the Post-it Note maker reported earnings per share of $1.83, compared to analysts' forecasts of $1.80, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The company expected temporary charges from tariffs and stranded costs from removing PFAS materials from its products. In Q4, 3M realized $0.56 per share in net costs from litigation.
Sales grew 2.1% in Q4 to $6.1 billion, topping expectations for $6 billion in sales.
For 2026, the company expects adjusted sales growth of around 4% for full-year adjusted EPS of $8.06. Full-year operating cash flow is expected to be $2.3 billion.
\\"2025 was an important year for 3M as we build a strong foundation that is reshaping our operating model and driving sustainable value creation,\\" 3M CEO William Brown said.
;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\\" class=\\"link yahoo-link\\">Read more live coverage of corporate earnings >
Big Tech and AI stocks dropped in premarket trade Tuesday as investors rotated out of riskier bets amid President Trump's escalation of trade war tensions with Europe.
Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), and Oracle (ORCL) fell around 2%.
Alphabet (GOOGL), Broadcom (AVGO), Tesla (TSLA), and Amazon (AMZN) sank almost 3%.
Nvidia-backed AI cloud and data center names Nebius (NBIS) and CoreWeave (CRWV) plunged over 5%.
Apple (AAPL) shares dropped more modestly — just over 1%.
Bloomberg reports:
The scale of the moves suggests that investors’ willingness to shrug off earlier shocks — including the White House’s capture of Venezuela’s leader and its renewed attacks on the Federal Reserve — is beginning to erode.
“Our bet is that in the base case the severity will ultimately still be contained as investors bet on some version of a compromise,” wrote Krishna Guha, head of central bank strategy at Evercore ISI. “But the impacts would be very severe if this goes off the rails, and there will be long-lasting implications, including for the dollar.”
As of last week, the average volatility across US bonds, equities and the dollar over the past month had sunk to the lowest since at least 1990.
But with the news coming at a rapid clip, it’s little wonder that investors have rushed to the sidelines. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Trump’s tariff program soon. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump could also announce his pick to run the Federal Reserve as soon as next week.
Japan’s soaring bond yields are also heightening investor worries. Yields on the nation’s 40-year debt topped 4% and the rate on 10-year Treasuries jumped six basis points to 4.29%.
The widespread view among investors is that the US and Europe will reach a diplomatic solution on Greenland. But the chaotic style of White House negotiations, with Trump adding French champagne to his list of tariff threats, is putting a chill on market confidence.
“The latest step-up in transatlantic tensions and tariff uncertainty dents the near-term investment case for European equities,” wrote Citigroup Inc. strategist Beata Manthey in a note. She cut her view on the region’s stock for the first time in over a year.
Read more here.
This week’s sudden stock market pullback might be catching a lot of investors off guard, per Bloomberg.
It reports:
Fund managers were the most bullish since July 2021 while protection against a stock correction had tumbled to an eight-year low, according to a survey from Bank of America Corp. conducted before the weekend’s escalations over Greenland.
A net 38% of respondents in the January poll expected stronger global growth, surging from the month prior, strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note.
Cash levels have tumbled to a record low while equity allocation climbed to the highest since December 2024 with 48% of managers overweight. That boosted the survey’s sentiment measure to the highest in over four years.
The findings also pushed BofA’s Bull and Bear indicator to a “hyper-bull” level, which indicates investors need to load up on risk hedges and safe havens. Instead, nearly half of participants said they do not have protection against a sharp fall in equity prices, the highest level since 2018.
Read more here.
Hawaiian Electric (HE) stock fell 5% before the bell on Tuesday after receiving a Sell rating and a $12.50 price target from Jefferies analysts.
D.R. Horton (DHI) stock fell 3% during premarket hours after reporting lower first quarter profit as affordability concerns continued to put off home buyers, hurting the company's sales.
Strategy (MSTR) stock dropped 4% before the bell today. Strategy, which is one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin, saw its shares fall on Tuesday, as bitcoin (BTC-USD) edged lower.
Treasury prices fell, pushing yields to the highest in more than four months as a fierce sell-off in Japanese bonds spilled over into global debt markets.
Bloomberg reports:
Longer maturities led losses, with US 30-year yields (^TYX) rising 10 basis points to 4.94% and 10-year yields (^TNX) up seven basis points to 4.30%, the highest levels since Sept. 3.
Trading of the securities resumed following a US holiday on Monday, with investors reacting to a tumble in Japanese bonds on Tuesday, as well as rising tensions between Europe and the US over control of Greenland.
Concern around Japan’s fiscal outlook sent yields on the nation’s 40-year debt rocketing above 4% in the Asian session, the most on record. That’s weighing on long-dated debt around the world, with 30-year bonds also underperforming in Europe.
Read more here.
British pharma giant GSK (GSK, GSK.L) has agreed to buy RAP Therapeutics (RAPT) in a $2.2 billion deal that will bolster its food allergy treatments.
Shares of the US-based biotech rocketed over 60% higher before the bell on news of the acquisition. GSK's US-listed stock traded little changed.
Reuters reports:
The move is GSK's first major acquisition under its new CEO Luke Miels as the company navigates US tariffs and seeks new medicines to offset revenue declines from some top-selling drugs going off patent.
... London-listed GSK will pay $58 per RAPT share, with an upfront investment of $1.9 billion. The deal will give GSK global rights to the ozureprubart programme, excluding mainland China, Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Read more here.
Treasurys fell early on Tuesday as President Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland dimmed the allure of US assets and ignited concerns the duties on European imports would add to inflationary pressures.
Bloomberg reports:
Longer maturities led losses, with the 30-year yield (^TYX) rising six basis points to 4.909% as trading of the securities resumed following a US holiday on Monday. Trump’s plan to impose levies on selected European nations as part of a bid to acquire Greenland has revived questions about the unpredictability of his policies and their desirability for global investors.
The decline in Treasuries deepened after Japanese bonds tumbled due to pushback over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s election pitch to cut taxes on food. Japan’s 30- and 40-year yields both surged more than 25 basis points. Australian and New Zealand debt also dropped along with German bund futures.
“The US administration’s actions have undermined the allure of holding Treasuries somewhat as a haven asset, and that ‘uncertainty factor’ is partly showing in rising yields,” said Prashant Newnaha, a strategist at TD Securities in Singapore. “Markets expect Trump to juice markets ahead of the mid terms, and the tariffs are inflationary.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg reports:
Gold (GC=F) was steady near a record high, while silver (SI=F) retreated from an all-time peak, as President Donald Trump’s push to take over Greenland stoked fears of a potential US–Europe trade war.
Markets are now waiting to see how Europe will respond after both precious metals surged on Monday following Trump’s pledge to impose tariffs on eight European nations opposing his Greenland ambitions. Gold traded near $4,670 an ounce on Tuesday, while silver briefly touched a record $94.7295 an ounce.
The US’ threat toward its NATO allies has rattled markets, buoying demand for havens and reviving the “Sell America” trade. French President Emmanuel Macron intends to request activation of the European Union’s anti-coercion instrument, although German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he’s trying to get Macron to tone down his response.
Read more here.