CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Fall As Trump Tariffs Enacted, Markets Now Negative For The Year, Mortgage Rates Drop 3/4/25

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger CNBC. Wall Street opens Wednesday morning after a sell-off for stocks Tuesday. The Trump bump has been completely erased. The S&P 500 index now negative since election day. The Dow's dropped more than 1300 points over the past two days as investors try to figure out the Trump tariffs and the retaliation from other countries. On Tuesday, the Dow was down 670 points, 1 1⁄2%. The S&P 500 index down 71 points, a little more than 1%. And the NASDAQ down 65 points, 3 tenths of 1%. The major averages are all negative for the year. Nvidia shares were up Tuesday one and a half

percent. Here's Mad Money host Jim Cramer from CNBC on the tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. There's just vast confusion. No one knows. I mean, the automakers don't know what this is gonna be. The packaged goods companies don't know what it's gonna be when it comes from another country. There's no clarity whatsoever. Anyone who thinks that there's clarity is just completely wrong. It isn't like they've said, okay, look, here's the schedule, here's the tariff. Like when you were in Europe and they did Brexit,

you got the schedule, you got the tariff. You said, oh, okay, I owe this. They haven't given us anything. We don't know what we owe, we don't know. We don't know where it's paid. We don't know if it isn't paid. Do we owe them? Who owes it?

Does the buyer owe it? I mean, the lack of any thought about this is stunning. CNBC's Jim Cramer. One thing about tariffs, once they're on, the kind of usually stay there and they push inflation higher because somebody has to pay. Once tariffs are in place, people and industries get used to it.

And so they're very hard to ramp back after being put in place. The industries that get that protection like that protection. And so they're very hard to ramp back after being put in place. The industries that get that protection like that protection. And so they don't want to see it reduced. You saw that the Trump administration imposed a lot of tariffs on China and the Biden administration kept them on

and added a few more. And so, at a time when there are already a lot of inflationary pressures, including a lot of other policies like tax cuts that can add to inflation, tariffs have not very helpful. Former US Trade Representative Michael Froman on CNBC, the CEO of Target says you, the consumer, will be paying higher prices on certain things almost right away.

Like fruits and vegetables, we depend on Mexico during the winter. The consumer will likely see price increases over the next couple of days. We're going to try to make sure we can do everything we can to protect pricing. But a 25% tariff, those prices will go up. For things like what? Strawberries, avocados, bananas. What are we talking about? You've got that list right. Target CEO Brian Cornell on CNBC with CNBC's Becky Quick. Turns out the tariffs may be good for somebody. Mortgage rates dropped Tuesday to their lowest since last October. 6.6% on average for a 30-year

fixed home loan. In mid-January, Mortgage News Daily had the average at 7.25%. Bond yields have fallen. Rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year Treasury. But CNBC's Diana Oleg says lower mortgage rates may not offset higher home prices that are coming because of the trump tariffs. A lot of people have been going to new construction because there's so little supply on the existing home market. And as the builders have to absorb these higher costs, of course they're gonna pass them on to the consumer. So I don't know that lower mortgage rates are going to

offset these higher prices that we're gonna see for both new and existing homes. CNBC's Diana Olek on On Wednesday's watchlist earnings are coming from Campbell's Foot Locker and Victoria's Secret. We get the ADP employment report on private sector hiring for February and it's equal payday that represents the pay gap between men and women. Jessica Edinger CNBC.