The prices of oil sharply declined into negative territory.
As of 23:05 GMT, shortly after these contracts resumed trading at 22:00 GMT, the Dow Jones was down 3.89%, while the S&P 500 fell by 4.39%.
The Dow Jones remained down 9.26% over the Thursday and Friday sessions, and the S&P 500 by 10.52%.
The barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the primary American variety of crude oil, for May delivery, the benchmark, dropped 3.31% to $59.94.
On Sunday, it fell below $60 for the first time since April 2021.
The U.S. crude has lost more than 16% since Wednesday.
“This is the worst meltdown we’ve seen in the markets because it was self-inflicted by Trump,” commented analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities on Saturday.
The logic of “temporary pain” defended by Donald Trump, anticipating a medium-term recovery, “is completely erroneous,” he added.
On Wednesday, the U.S. President announced an initial wave of 10% tariffs imposed on all of the United States’ trading partners, which came into effect on Saturday.
This rate will be increased on Wednesday for dozens of countries, including China, which will rise to 34%, and the European Union, to 20%.
The introduction of these tariffs, which threaten to disrupt the world trade order as never before in the modern era, left financial markets in panic.
Wall Street had not experienced such upheaval since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
However, speaking to journalists aboard the presidential plane Air Force One, Donald Trump downplayed the stock market panic caused by his new tariffs, comparing them to “a treatment” intended to cure the ills of the American economy.
“Sometimes, you need to take a treatment to heal,” said the U.S. President, as stock indices were heading for another fall on Monday.
