Why Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Got Hammered Today, Even Though Trump's Tariffs Were Supposed to Help Steelmakers
Be careful what you wish for.
Shares of U.S. steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE: CLF) plunged 16.9% on Thursday, which was significantly worse than the 4.8% plunge experienced by the S&P 500 index.
Some might be confused as to why Cleveland-Cliffs, a domestic steel supplier, would be down so much on last night's sweeping tariff announcements from the Trump administration. After all, Cleveland-Cliffs is one of the larger domestic steel producers in the United States. So aren't the administration's tariff policies supposed to help prop up prices for domestic steelmakers?
As investors may have found out back in 2018 when steel tariffs were implemented and trade wars ramped up, adversarial trade policies aren't the greatest for steel end-market demand, especially autos. Back then, the drop in demand proved to outweigh the benefits of the tariffs, and that's certainly what investors expect now.
