Technically heavy Nasdaq's composite index lost even more, down 3.6 percent, as giants like Apple and Amazon fell hard, down 3.5 and 5.0 percent respectively. Dow Jones industrial index retreated 1.9 percent.
The declines came after President Donald Trump on his platform Truth Social wrote that he is considering sharply increased tariffs on imports from China. He is upset over the export restrictions that the country has introduced on rare earth metals.
One of the worst crashes on Wall Street was Levi Strauss, despite the jeans giant in its interim report reporting higher profit than expected. The share fell 12.6 percent. Perhaps the company was affected by excessively high expectations – until Friday, the Levi Strauss share had risen 42 percent after the turn of the year.
Calculated over the entire past week, S&P 500 retreated 2.4 percent, Nasdaq 2.5 percent and Dow Jones 2.7 percent.