*
US stocks down sharply with S&P 500 down more than 1%
*
Dollar falls after Trump comments on China tariffs
*
Yen still on track for losses for the week after political
changes
(Updates to late morning)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Stock indexes fell sharply,
with the Nasdaq down more than 2%, while Treasury yields fell
and the U.S. dollar weakened on Friday after President Donald
Trump said he was weighing a "massive increase" in tariffs on
Chinese goods.
Trump said there was no reason to meet with China's President Xi
Jinping in two weeks in South Korea as planned, adding in a
Truth Social post that the U.S. is calculating a massive
increase in tariffs on Chinese imports.
"He's caught the market off guard again and thrown more
question marks into a market that is being questioned about a
very high degree of enthusiasm and being sort of scrutinized for
having too much fluff built into it," said Robert Pavlik, senior
portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 531.75 points,
or 1.15%, to 45,826.67, the S&P 500 fell 109.06 points,
or 1.62%, to 6,626.05 and the Nasdaq Composite fell
525.03 points, or 2.28%, to 22,496.64.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell
14.33 points, or 1.44%, to 979.14.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 1.22%.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback
against a basket of currencies, was down 0.46% at 98.93, with
the euro up 0.48% at $1.1618. Against the Japanese yen
, the dollar weakened 0.93% to151.65.
The yen was still headed for declines for the week against
the dollar following Japan's political changes and rate outlook
uncertainty.
The Japanese currency has dropped on concerns that the Bank
of Japan may not hike interest rates again this year after
fiscal dove Sanae Takaichi's surprise victory to lead the ruling
party.
Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said on Friday that
the government was concerned about excessive volatility in the
foreign exchange market.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron welcomed mainstream
political leaders to a crunch meeting at the Elysee ahead of a
self-imposed late-Friday deadline to name a new prime minister.
In the U.S. Treasury market, the yield on benchmark U.S.
10-year notes fell 8.7 basis points to 4.061%, from
4.148% late on Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London, Gregor Stuart
Hunter in Singapore and Purvi Agarwal; Editing by Susan Fenton
and Nick Zieminski)