NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street held relatively firm on Tuesday following President Donald Trump’s latest tariff escalation and after the Federal Reserve hinted interest rates may not change for a while.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged and edged up by less than 0.1% in the market’s first trading since Trump announced 25% tariffs on all foreign steel and aluminum coming into the country. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 123 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.4%.
The moves were modest not only for U.S. stocks but also in the bond market, where Treasury yields rose by only a bit.
The threat of a possible trade war is very real, of course, with high potential stakes. Most of Wall Street agrees that substantial and sustained tariffs would push up prices for U.S. households and ultimately lead to big pain for financial markets around the world. The European Union’s chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday that “unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures.”
But trading remained mostly calm in part because Trump has shown he can be quick to pull back on such threats. That’s what he did earlier with 25% tariffs he had announced for all imports from Canada and Mexico, suggesting tariffs may be merely a negotiating chip rather than a true long-term policy. That in turn has much of Wall Street hoping the worst-case scenario may not happen.
“The metal tariffs may serve as negotiating leverage,” according to Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer, Americas, at UBS Global Wealth Management.
In the meantime, much of Wall Street’s focus on Tuesday swung to a different part of Washington. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said again in testimony on Capitol Hill that the Fed is in no hurry to ease interest rates any further.
The Fed had cut its main interest rate sharply through the end of last year, hoping to give a boost to the economy. But worries about inflation potentially staying stubbornly high have forced the Fed and traders alike to cut back expectations for cuts in 2025. Some traders are even betting on the possibility of zero, in part because of worries about the effects of tariffs.
“We’re in a pretty good place,” Powell said about where the economy and interest rates are currently. He said again he’s aware that going too slowly on rate cuts could damage the economy, while moving too quickly could push inflation higher.
Higher rates tend to put downward pressure on prices for stocks and other investments, while pressuring the economy by making borrowing more expensive. That could be risky for a U.S. stock market that critics say already looks too expensive. The S&P 500 is not far from its all-time high set late last month.
One way companies can offset such downward pressure on their stock prices is to deliver stronger profits. And big U.S. companies have been mostly doing just that recently, as they report how much profit they made during the last three months of 2024. That, though, hasn’t always been enough.
Marriott International fell 5.4% even though it reported a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on its forecasted range for an important underlying measure of profit this upcoming year, which fell short of what analysts were expecting.
Humana sank 3.5% despite reporting a milder loss than analysts expected. The insurer and health care company offered a forecast for profit in 2025 that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
Helping to offset such losses was Coca-Cola, which rallied 4.7% after reporting stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected. Growth in China, Brazil and the United States helped lead the way.
DuPont climbed 6.8% after the chemical company likewise reported better profit than Wall Street expected.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 2.06 points to 6,068.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 123.24 to 44,593.65, and the Nasdaq composite fell 70.41 to 19,643.86.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.53% from 4.50% late Monday. The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more closely with expectations for upcoming action by the Fed, held steady. It remained at 4.28%, where it was late Monday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.1%, and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7% for some of the bigger moves, while Japanese markets were closed for a national holiday.
FILE - Trader Jonathan Mueller works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, file)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
ANGOLA, La. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch effort to block Louisiana’s first execution using nitrogen gas, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, is to be put to death for the 1996 murder of advertising executive Mary “Molly” Elliott in what would be Louisiana’s first execution in 15 years. The court, on a 5-4 vote, refused to intervene.
Nitrogen gas has been used just four other times to execute a person in the United States, all in Alabama. Hoffman’s attorneys say the method is unconstitutional, violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Louisiana officials maintain that the execution method is painless.
Hoffman’s lawyers also contend that it infringes on Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to his death.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
ANGOLA, La. (AP) — Hours before a Louisiana man is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday evening, his attorneys were hoping for a last-minute court ruling to halt the state’s first execution by nitrogen gas.
Louisiana plans to use the new method to put Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, to death Tuesday evening in the state's first execution in 15 years. Nitrogen gas has been used just four times to execute a person in the U.S. — all in Alabama.
Three other executions by lethal injection are scheduled this week — in Arizona on Wednesday and in Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday.
Hoffman's lawyers say the nitrogen gas method is unconstitutional, violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. They also say it infringes on Hoffman's freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to death.
Louisiana officials maintain that the method, which deprives a person of oxygen, is painless. They say it is past time for the state to deliver justice promised to victims' families after a decade and a half hiatus — one partly brought on by an inability to secure lethal injection drugs.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said she expects at least four people on Louisiana's death row to be executed this year.
Murrill said that she expected the execution to go forward as planned and that “justice will finally be served.” Hoffman was convicted of the 1996 murder of a 28-year-old advertising executive, Mary “Molly” Elliott, in New Orleans. At the time of the crime, he was 18.
After court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman are turning to the U.S. Supreme Court in a bid to halt the planned execution. However, the court declined to intervene in the nation's first nitrogen hypoxia execution last year.
On Monday, Hoffman's attorneys filed several challenges in state and federal courts in a last-ditch effort to spare him.
At a hearing Tuesday morning, 19th Judicial District Court Judge Richard “Chip” Moore declined to stop the execution. He agreed with state lawyers who argued the man's religion-based arguments fell under the jurisdiction of a federal judge who had already ruled on them, according to local news outlets.
Under Louisiana protocol, which is nearly identical to Alabama's, Hoffman is to be strapped to a gurney and have a full-face respirator mask fitted tightly on him. Pure nitrogen gas is then to be pumped into the mask, forcing him to breathe it in and depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.
The nitrogen gas is to be administered for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after his heart rate reaches a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer.
Each inmate put to death using nitrogen in Alabama has appeared to shake and gasp to varying degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including an Associated Press reporter. The reactions are involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation, state officials have said.
Four states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma — specifically authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Then on Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gas, making hers the fifth state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people on death row.
Alabama first used the lethal gas to put Kenneth Eugene Smith to death last year, marking the first time a new method had been used in the U.S. since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.
In an effort to resume executions, Louisiana's GOP-dominated Legislature expanded the state’s approved death penalty methods last year to include nitrogen hypoxia and electrocution. Lethal injection was already in place.
Over recent decades, the number of executions nationally has declined sharply amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal injection drugs and waning public support for capital punishment. That has led a majority of states to either abolish or pause carrying out the death penalty.
On Tuesday afternoon, a small group of people opposed to the execution plan held a vigil outside the rural prison. Some passed out prayer cards with photos of a smiling Hoffman and planned a Buddhist reading and “Meditation for Peace.”
FILE - Vehicles enter at the main security gate at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La., Aug. 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni, File)
This undated photo shows Louisiana death row inmate Jessie Hoffman Jr., who was convicted in the 1996 murder of Mary "Molly" Elliott. (Caroline Tillman/Federal Public Defender's Office For the Middle and Western Districts of Louisiana via AP)
