Stock Market Live July 8: S&P 500 (VOO) Keeps Falling as Tariff Worries Sink In

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) sank an unlucky 0.7% on Monday, closing at 570.55, as investors digested a wide variety of troubling news — from continued political feuding between President Donald Trump and tech magnate Elon Musk, to the July 4 passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), to, eventually, the afternoon news that Trump is nowhere near done levying tariffs on U.S. trade partners.

The President announced tariffs will go into effect August 1 on more than a dozen countries, with important U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, for example, both suffering 25% tariff levies on their exports to the U.S. Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, Serbia, Thailand, and Tunisia all also number among Mr. Trump’s tariffs targets.

Laos and Myanmar are particularly at risk, facing 40% tariffs, while Cambodia and Thailand will face a 36% rate, and Bangladesh and Serbia, 35%. Granted, most of these rates are similar to what the President already announced back on “Liberation Day,” April 2, and were in theory at least expected to snap back into effect 90 days later in the absence of signed trade deals.

Still, many investors seem to have maintained the belief that these tariffs were a bluff, and that hope’s now been called into question. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is trading down another 0.2% premarket today.

Analyst Calls

Adding to the bad news, HSBC announced today that it’s downgrading shares of three of America’s biggest banks. S&P 500 components Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) are both downgraded to “reduce,” while Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) suffers a smaller cut to “hold” this morning.

Valuation is HSBC’s primary concern. The banker notes, for example, that JPMorgan stock must grow in a “low-double-digit range” in order to justify its current 16x forward earnings valuation. “If EPS growth does not reach this threshold,” warns the analyst, “JPMorgan’s PE multiple would need to expand further” for the stock price to go up at all.

In the case of Goldman, meanwhile, “the absence of a material increase in [investment banking] activity over a sustained period and/or a cool-down in market performance could lead to disappointment and a sharp correction.”