Wall Street loses more than half of Wednesday’s historic surge as US-China trade tensions escalate

U.S. stocks are diving Thursday and surrendering much of their historic gains from the day before as President Donald Trump’s trade war continues to confuse and threaten the economy, even if its temperature has cooled a bit.

The S&P 500 was down 5% in midday trading, slicing into Wednesday’s surge of 9.5% following Trump’s decision to pause many of his tariffs worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,724 points, or 4.2%, as of 12:40 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 5.7% lower.