September opens in the red for US stocks as tariff uncertainty clouds Asia forecasts

US stocks entered September on the back foot as futures dropped early Tuesday, with traders reacting to trade war fallout, rising bond yields, and fresh signals from Asia.

All three major US indexes were in the red before markets even opened. Dow futures fell 189 points, or 0.4%, while S&P 500 futures slid 0.5%, and Nasdaq-100 futures dropped 0.7%.

Profit-taking kicked in as the summer wrapped. Names that have led the charge this year started bleeding. Nvidia was down 1.5%, and Palantir lost 2%, dragging down the tech sector.

The selling was clearly timed with the calendar flip. At the same time, bond traders didn’t hold back either. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.29%, and the 30-year yield climbed to 4.98%, setting the tone for the day.

Wall Street shifts focus to jobs report and Fed call

August closed strong for US stocks, but nobody’s celebrating this week. Last month, the Dow gained more than 3%, the S&P 500 added nearly 2%, and the Nasdaq rose 1.6%. That made it four consecutive months of gains for the S&P 500. But traders quickly switched gears. The next big piece of data is Friday’s August jobs report, which could shape the Federal Reserve’s rate decision coming mid-September.

Overseas, Asia-Pacific markets had no clear direction. Some countries held firm, others slipped. The confusion is partly tied to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin. Trade tension weighed on sentiment after a federal appeals court ruled most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs illegal.

On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that India had offered to cut its tariffs on US imports to zero, but he made it clear he wasn’t impressed. “They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago,” Trump posted. He called the economic ties with India “one sided.”

Still, Indian equities posted modest gains. The Nifty 50 index rose 0.28%, and the BSE Sensex climbed 0.26% by early afternoon local time.

Asian stocks split as inflation, politics and fines move markets

Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended Tuesday 0.29% higher at 42,310.49. The broader Topix index gained 0.61% to close at 3,081.88. One of the day’s top performers was a Japanese soft drink and wellness food company that surged 2.94%.

In South Korea, the Kospi index went up 0.94% to finish at 3,172.35, while the Kosdaq gained 1.15% to reach 794. New inflation numbers showed the country’s consumer price index rose 1.7% in August, the slowest pace since last November. That figure came in lower than the 2% forecast from Reuters economists and marked a drop from July’s 2.1%.

Not every market stayed positive. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.47% to 25,496.55, and mainland China’s CSI 300 dropped 0.74% to 4,490.45. Uncertainty around trade and the court ruling in the US pulled Chinese equities down.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index slipped 0.3%, ending the day at 8,900.60. The country’s regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, fined a local unit of French bank Societe Generale AU$3.88 million (US$2.52 million) for failing to prevent sketchy orders in the electricity and wheat futures markets.

Australia also released current account data showing a deficit of AU$13.7 billion for the April-June quarter. That was slightly better than the AU$14.7 billion deficit recorded last quarter and beat the AU$16 billion economists had forecast, based on a Reuters poll.

Commodities were flat. Spot gold was trading at US$3,472.79 around 4:10 a.m. ET. The price was off session highs after earlier hitting US$3,503.32, a fresh record.

In currency markets, the US dollar was up 0.86% against the Japanese yen, trading at 148.47. In Japan, political fallout added to the noise. Hiroshi Moriyama, the secretary general of the ruling party and a close aide to the Prime Minister, announced plans to resign after taking responsibility for the party’s loss in the July 20 upper house election.

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