By Connor Smith

Slipped Away. The S&P 500 entered the final half-hour of trading on pace for its biggest comeback since April. Then the president posted about cooking oil.

The S&P 500 finished the day down 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 203 points, or 0.4%. Unlike the S&P 500, it held on to mark its biggest reversal from an intraday low since April 30, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Just as Wall Street was looking past the latest flare ups in U.S.-China trade tensions, President Donald Trump posted the following on Truth Social:

I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution. As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don't need to purchase it from China.

Stocks fell sharply. Wall Street wants the U.S. and China to make up because higher tariffs and export restrictions are likely to harm the global economy.

The market initially fell this morning after China imposed sanctions on some U.S. shipping subsidiaries. Things turned around, especially after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC told that senior level officials from both countries spoke on Monday.

"We can't have a situation where the Chinese keep this regime in place where they want to have veto power over the world's high-tech supply chains," Greer said. "They are the ones who chose to make this major escalation. Our agreement was that we would keep our tariffs low if you keep the rare earths flowing."

While this latest threat may ultimately prove to be noise for the market, it reinforced the fact that traders need to be on their toes and braced for shifting trade tensions.

"The China overhang will not disappear given the size of the tail risk if things keep escalating," wrote 22V Research's Dennis DeBusschere earlier this morning. "Expect an imbedded risk premium until there is more concrete news about the two sides meeting."

This latest kerfuffle also overshadowed a strong start to earnings season from the big banks. More on that below...

The Hot Stock: Wells Fargo +7.2% The Biggest Loser: Arista Networks -5.9%

Best Sector: Consumer Staples +1.6% Worst Sector: Technology -1.3%

Take It to the Bank

Earnings season kicked off in earnest today, as some of Wall Street's heaviest hitters delivered relatively strong results.

JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs all reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

My Barron's colleagues Rebecca Ungarino and Andrew Welsch report that credit losses and spending are holding up in the face of worries about economic and labor market growth. They write:

Under the hood, analysts and investors were looking for clues on consumer health. They found encouraging signs: Solid loan portfolios and constructive comments from bank leaders showed pressures like the Trump administration's tariff and immigration policies aren't yet denting their credit quality.

JPMorgan revised its expected net charge-off rate across cards down to about 3.3% from 3.6% for the year, Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum told analysts, which he said was "driven by the continued resilience of the consumer." Net charge-offs measure loans a bank views as unrecoverable. Barnum said while he is tracking potential softening in the labor market, the firm's credit metrics are stable.

At the same time, bank executives acknowledged their customers tend to have higher credit scores, so they may not have complete views of consumer weaknesses.

Wells Fargo stock rallied 7.2% and led the S&p 500; JPMorgan Chase shares dropped 1.9%; Citigroup shares gained 3.9%; BlackRock stock gained 3.4%; Goldman Sachs shares dropped 2%; the SPDR S&P Bank ETF rose 3%.

You can read Barron's coverage of everything bank earnings here.

The Calendar

Abbott Laboratories, ASML Holding, Bank of America, Citizens Financial Group, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Morgan Stanley, PNC Financial Services Group, Prologis, and United Airlines Holdings report quarterly results tomorrow.

The Federal Reserve releases the beige book for the seventh of eight times this year. The report gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions from the 12 regional banks.

What We're Reading Today

   -- Fed Chair Powell Sees More Job Market Weakness. 'There Is No Risk-Free 
      Path.' 
 
   -- Funding Bill Goes to 8th Vote Today as Trump Threatens 'Democrat' Program 
      Cuts 
 
   -- GM Just Took a $1.6 Billion EV Write-Down. Why the Stock Is Rising. 
 
   -- Walmart Teams With OpenAI for ChatGPT Purchases. The Retailer Is 'Ahead 
      of the Curve.' 
 
   -- These Chinese Consumers Are Splurging. Little Luxuries Are Big Business. 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 14, 2025 20:02 ET (00:02 GMT)

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