Author: News Room

Markets shuddered on Friday as the trade war between the United States and China continued to escalate.On Wall Street, at the end of an extremely volatile week, the S&P 500 index opened with a small drop and then climbed about half a percent higher. The Stoxx Europe 600 index slipped about 0.2 percent. Earlier on Friday, the pan-European index had dropped more steeply after China raised its tariffs on U.S. imports to 125 percent.Markets around the world have veered sharply between large gains and losses amid the turmoil and confusion caused by President Trump’s pronouncements on tariffs. The U.S. dollar…

Add this to worries about the likely impact of tariffs: costlier car insurance.The new tariffs on imported cars, metals and parts announced by the Trump administration are expected to raise vehicle prices by thousands of dollars if they remain in place. And because parts used in auto repairs will also become more expensive, the average cost of automobile insurance is expected to increase.The average annual premium for a full-coverage auto policy was just over $2,300 at the end of last year, according to an analysis by Insurify, an insurance comparison shopping website. The site initially estimated that premiums would increase…

Wall Street’s biggest firms on Friday attempted the tricky two-step of revealing the toll of President Trump’s whiplash tariff policy without outright criticizing a man who has repeatedly lashed out at the financial world for slights both real and imagined.“The economy is facing considerable turbulence,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, said in a statement.The careful choreography came at the start of earnings season, a quarterly ritual in which publicly traded firms disclose their financial results and, in many cases, give projections. It’s not typically of interest for many besides professional investors, but it took on new importance and anticipation…

China responded to President Trump’s tariffs on Friday, raising its own tariffs on American goods to 125 percent, from 84 percent.The announcement by China’s State Council came after Trump administration officials clarified on Thursday that China was now facing a minimum tariff rate of 145 percent on all exports to United States.China said its new tariffs will take effect on Saturday.This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Tesla has stopped accepting new orders in China for two car models that it imports from a factory in the United States, after the Chinese government imposed steep tariffs on American imports.On Friday, Tesla’s website in China removed the “order” button from the Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle. Customers still have the option of purchasing one of those models, produced at its Fremont, Calif., factory, if the company has existing inventory.Tesla did not explain why customers could no longer order those models, but the change came a day after China raised its import tariffs on U.S.…

If the on-again, off-again tariff announcements by President Trump have struck you as unusual, that’s for good reason. Nothing like this has ever happened before.That’s the estimation of Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth economic historian whose 2017 book, “Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy,” is the leading work on the subject. I called him for perspective. He told me that what we were experiencing was way outside the historical norm. One man alone has risked the first global trade war since the 1930s by raising tariffs to levels unseen for more than a century. The president’s actions, he…

As the United States and China barreled headfirst into full-fledged trade war this week, one of Beijing’s most fashionable shopping districts was still bustling. People browsed a high-end perfumery, lounged outside coffee shops and waited in a wraparound line for a trendy bakery.That is just the type of scene the Chinese government wants to see as it steels for what could be a total breakdown of trade with the United States. As President Trump maintains tariffs of at least 125 percent on its goods, China has vowed not to back down. Besides hitting back with its own tariffs — 84…

A haunting childhood moment defined how John Kakuk would think about investing his own money when the time came. During the 2008 financial crisis, his mother asked him if he would be willing to contribute the meager savings in his piggy bank to his family’s grocery fund should his father, a lawyer, lose his job.“She was very anxious,” Mr. Kakuk, then 12, remembered.His family averted disaster. “As far as I know, we didn’t miss a mortgage payment, we didn’t get a car repossessed, nothing like that,” recalled Mr. Kakuk, 28, who runs Bridger Digital, a marketing firm. But the rattling…

A day after President Trump capitulated on his global reciprocal tariffs, he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisted that one country after another was coming to them to make deals to avoid further economic pain.But the devil is in the details, and Mr. Trump and Mr. Lutnick offered very few. Instead, they said that things would work out, without saying much more.“Everybody wants to come and make a deal, and we’re working with a lot of different countries, and it’s all going to work out very well,” Mr. Trump said during a cabinet meeting. “I think it’s going to work…

It may surprise some to learn that New York is the most forgetful city when it comes to ride shares. So says Uber, which has released its ninth annual Lost & Found Index — a hilarious, surprising and occasionally gross list of stuff riders left behind in cars last year. (Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., were close behind New York in obliviousness.)In reporting the data, the San Francisco ride-share behemoth also noted that it was doing so just as the planet Mercury was coming out of retrograde, a time astrologers claim has an effect on forgetting.On April 5…