Wall Street’s main indexes each slid to more than one-week lows on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on attacks against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, amplifying concerns about the central bank’s autonomy and rattling markets.
Trump repeated his criticism of Powell, saying in a Truth Social post that the economy could slow down unless interest rates are lowered immediately. That followed comments by White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Friday that Trump and his team would study if firing Powell was an option.
Trump’s continued criticism of the Fed chair has heightened worries about the central bank’s ability to independently formulate monetary policy in the world’s largest economy, undermining investor confidence in U.S. assets already diminished by Trump’s tariffs.
The S&P 500 was down 3.35% Monday afternoon, in trading somewhat thinned by the absence of numerous overseas markets that remained closed for Easter. The Nasdaq Composite was down 3.63% and the Dow Jones Industrial index was down 3.26%. The U.S. dollar index was down 0.47% and selling of the 10-year Treasury note pushed its yield up 7.4 basis points to 4.4008%.