Trump rattles Wall Street

Agencies

Wall Street's major indexes started the day in the red yesterday after US President Donald Trump declined to rule out the chance of a recession in the world's biggest economy.

Minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.1 percent to 42,320.56, while the S&P 500 Index fell 1.6 percent to 5,677.76.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 2.3 percent to 17,782.54.

On Sunday, Trump told a Fox News interviewer that he disliked predicting things like a recession, when asked directly about the possibility of such a downturn in 2025.

"There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big -- we're bringing wealth back to America," Trump said.

But he added that this takes some time.

In Hong Kong, stocks narrowed their losses to less than 2 percent yesterday.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index once fell to as low as 23,632 points - 2.47 percent lower than Friday's close - on concerns about deflationary pressures in China before ending 447 points lower at 23,783 points.