Stocks swing wildly as markets try to assess impact of Trump’s trade war

An electronic display shows financial information on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on Monday (Seth Wenig/AP)

Wall Street is careening through a shocking day of trading on Monday, catapulting from an early drop that had dragged it 20% below its record to a sudden rise, only to revert to losses as worries remain about whether US President Donald Trump’s trade war will torpedo the global economy.

The S&P 500 went from a 4.7% drop shortly after the start of trading all the way to a surge of 3.4%, a gain that would have counted as its best day in years. It then quickly gave up all of it to revert to a drop of 1.3%, as of 10.30am Eastern time.