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Investors seem to be starting to wonder if they’ve taken the recovery in U.S. assets just far enough.
A day after the S&P 500 snapped a six-day winning streak with a 0.39% drop—and the Nasdaq and Dow also closed in the red—U.S. market futures dropped again Wednesday premarket. S&P, Dow and Nasdaq futures were all off by some 0.6%, as investors took their U.S. gains off the table.
The winner from the investors’ U.S. pause? Asia.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.6% and India’s Nifty 50 was up by 0.4% in late trading, while Shanghai’s index rose a modest 0.2%.
Japan was a notable loser, with the Nikkei falling 0.6% as the impact from U.S President Donald Trump’s tariff scheme came into focus. New government data showed that exports to the U.S., which is Japan’s second-largest trading partner, fell for the first time since last year, posting a 1.8% drop compared to a year ago.
For Wall Street’s analysts, the move from investor exuberance to pause in terms of U.S. assets is a return to reality.
Calling the stock market’s recent recovery “extraordinary” in its speed and size, Kristian Kerr, head of macro strategy at LPL Financial warned, per CNBC: “While it may be tempting to interpret this powerful rally as a definitive signal that risks have subsided, the reality is that plenty of uncertainty remains.”
And over at JPMorgan, the global economic research team led by Joseph Lupton cut U.S. recession risk from 60% to a still substantial 40% as the U.S. got “out of the fire” of a trade war but “back into the frying pan” when it came to future tariff uncertainty.
“The recent US backtrack on US-China tariffs has altered our thinking in two important ways. First, the size of the tariff tax hike has been scaled down—imparting less of a purchasing power squeeze. Second, the quick unilateral tariff reversal by Trump is signaling less tolerance for ‘short-term pain, long-term gain,’” they wrote. “As a result, we no longer see a US recession but expect material headwinds to keep growth weak through the rest of this year.”
Here’s a snapshot of today’s action prior to the opening bell in New York:
- The S&P 500 fell 0.4% Tuesday. The index is up 1% YTD.
- S&P futures traded down 0.6% this morning, premarket.
- The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.3% in early trading.
- Asia was up (mostly): Japan was down 0.6%. Hong Kong rose 0.6%. Shanghai was up 0.2% and India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.4%.
- The ‘Magnificent 7’ all fell Tuesday, except for Tesla, which rose 0.5% after Elon Musk said he expected to still be in charge in five years.
- Bitcoin was sitting above $106,000 this morning.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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https://fortune.com/2025/05/21/investors-call-time-on-u-s-asset-party-as-trump-tariffs-hit-japan/
Ian Mount
