US stocks post worst quarter since 2022 amid tariff fears

At this time’s agenda: Verdict towards Marine Le Pen; US-Denmark talks; UK’s ‘terrible April’; and Sam Mendes’s Holocaust movie

Wall Road shares posted their worst quarter in virtually three years on fears that Donald Trump’s tariffs will usher in a interval of stagflation on the earth’s greatest financial system.

What’s occurring: The S&P 500 dropped 4.6 per cent within the first three months of 2025, the worst efficiency for the reason that third quarter of 2022, FactSet knowledge exhibits. The blue-chip index rose 0.6 per cent yesterday. Buyers are bracing themselves for Trump’s “Liberation Day” occasion tomorrow, when the US president is predicted to announce contemporary tariffs on high of current levies on imports of products comparable to metal and aluminium.

International response: European equities outperformed the US, in a marked shift from 2023 and 2024 when Wall Road zoomed previous its rivals. Asian markets have been combined over the quarter, with Japan’s Topix sliding 4.5 per cent, China’s CSI 300 slipping 1.2 per cent, however Hong Kong’s Cling Seng rising 15 per cent and Korea’s Kospi up 3.4 per cent.

Here’s more on the tariff-fuelled uncertainty weighing on markets.

And right here’s what else we’re holding tabs on at present:

• Financial knowledge: The UK, US, Eurozone, France, Germany, and Italy launch manufacturing sector figures for March. The EU additionally reviews inflation knowledge for March and unemployment figures for February.

• UK: The rise in minimal wage charges takes impact at present — sharply raising labour costs for employers of low-wage workers. Additionally, Britain’s highest courtroom hears an enchantment towards a judgment that automobile finance brokers should absolutely inform clients about commissions on car loans, amid a looming multibillion-pound shopper redress scheme.

• Corporations: Ivan Espinosa replaces Makoto Uchida as chief government of Nissan. Niox Group and Pinewood Applied sciences difficulty outcomes.

5 extra high tales

1. French far-right chief Marine Le Pen has been banned from standing for workplace for 5 years with instant impact and sentenced to jail after being convicted of embezzling EU funds. The courtroom ruling, which analysts described as a “major turning point in French political life”, is prone to block Le Pen from operating within the 2027 presidential election, wherein she was one of many favourites.

2. Unique: DeepMind has been holding again the discharge of its world-renowned analysis because it seeks to retain a aggressive edge within the race to dominate the quickly rising synthetic intelligence trade. Based on present and former analysis scientists, Google’s AI arm has launched a more durable vetting course of and extra forms that has made it harder to publish studies about its work.

3. Denmark’s international minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen is ready to satisfy US secretary of state Marco Rubio this week within the first in-person, high-level diplomatic talks between the 2 international locations since Trump’s re-election and his vow to “take management” of Greenland. Here’s what we know about the planned meeting.

4. The UK’s Pension Safety Fund has mentioned it’ll make investments 10 per cent of its belongings in British infrastructure and scale-up firms if the federal government expands its remit to permit it to vacuum up smaller schemes. The £32bn pensions lifeboat’s chief government Michelle Ostermann mentioned consolidating the outlined profit sector would “give better outcomes to members”.

5. Unique: Barclays’ non-public credit score associate AGL has struggled to draw contemporary funding virtually a yr after it introduced a tie-up with the financial institution, damping hopes the deal may present the British lender with firepower to compete in a $1.6tn market. The fundraising difficulties are one symptom of the slowdown in non-public markets.

• Lloyd’s of London: Bruce Carnegie-Brown, the insurance coverage market’s outgoing chair, has endorsed Patrick Tiernan because it prepares for triple departures.

Information in-depth

Klarna has introduced “pay in 4” loans to all the pieces from meals to vogue. Now it has a $15bn IPO in its sights. Can the Swedish fintech finally silence the Buy Now, Pay Later doubters?

We’re additionally studying and listening to . . . 

Chart of the day

International vitality demand rose quicker than traditional final yr, in keeping with new knowledge revealed by the Worldwide Power Company, as document temperatures internationally meant extra energy was used for cooling within the self-perpetuating loop between climate change and energy use.

Take a break from the information . . . 

What They Discovered, Sam Mendes’s 40-minute Holocaust documentary, is each an unflinching confrontation with the horrors of Bergen-Belsen — the place greater than 52,000 individuals died, most of them Jewish — and a powerful meditation on the duty of bearing witness to atrocities then and now.