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Stocks struggle over tariff concerns

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Gold scores fresh record high, oil slips

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Bond markets increasingly pricing in recession risks

By Chibuike Oguh and Marc Jones

NEW YORK/LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Safe-haven gold

hit a fresh record high on Friday as an index of global shares

traded lower, weighed down by worries over a looming trade war

sparked by tariff decisions from U.S. President Donald Trump.

U.S. traders had new sticky inflation data to grumble about

but it was Trump's 25% tariffs on auto imports and plans

for much broader levies next week that continued to cause the

nail-biting.

On Wall Street, all three main indexes were losing ground

and were on track for their third straight session of losses.

The biggest losers were communication services, consumer

discretionary, technology and financial equities. Utilities

stocks were trading higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.62% to

41,620.85, the S&P 500 fell 1.88% to 5,586.60 and the

Nasdaq Composite fell 2.60% to 17,340.79.

Europe's STOXX 600 index finished down 0.77% and

ended the week down 1.39%, dragged down by a nearly 1% drop by

the car and auto parts sector.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe

fell 1.53% to 830.40. It is on track to end the week down 1.39%.

State Street's head of global macro strategy, Michael

Metcalfe, said that U.S. car tariffs had been more aggressive

than expected, especially as there had been no adjustments made

for Washington's neighbors like Mexico and Canada.

"What I don't know is whether the hawkishness of the auto

tariffs is going to translate to the broader tariffs that we are

going to get next week," Metcalfe said. "And that is keeping

risk appetite on the back foot."

Gold prices meanwhile set yet another new peak of

$3,086.70 as the threat of trade wars drives a rush towards the

safe-haven metal. It was last up 0.77% to $3,079.62 an ounce

For the quarter it is now up more than 17%, which is its

best quarterly performance since 1986.

Wasif Latif, chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners in

New Jersey, said gold prices have been buoyed by rising

inflation, elevated geopolitical tensions, and fiscal risks,

particularly deficit spending in the U.S. and other countries.

"We continue to see inflation as being stubborn, sticky and

just won't go away. The geopolitical environment continues to be

risky and elevated ... You can see the fiscal risk on the U.S.

budget side but also broader western sovereign debt and it's

getting challenging with the budget continuing to run a deficit

increasingly and interest rates remaining stubbornly high,"

Latif said.

In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields declined as

investors assessed the likely negative hit on growth from

Trump's tariffs. Traders in interest rate futures were betting

on a total of about 66 basis points in interest rate cuts this

year, according to LSEG data.

The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell

10.8 basis points to 4.261%.

Traders now see an 80% chance of a 25-basis-point (bps) ECB

rate cut in April from around a 50% chance a week ago. German

Bund yields, the euro zone's benchmark of borrowing

costs, rose 0.2 basis points to 2.735%.

In currency markets, the dollar weakened against major

including the Japanese yen and euro after the

hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data added to concerns about

tariffs.

The euro has been one of the big beneficiaries of

the greenback's struggles. It is up 4.2% this week against the

greenback.

The dollar weakened 0.7% to 150 against the Japanese yen

, while the euro rose 0.17% at $1.0819.

Against the Swiss franc, the dollar strengthened 0.05%

to 0.882 but weakened 0.01% to C$1.43 per dollar against the

Canadian dollar.

In commodities, oil prices turned flat as traders assessed

a tightening of crude supplies along with new U.S. tariffs and

their expected effect on the world's economy.

Brent crude futures were at $73.56 a barrel, down

0.63%. U.S. crude fell 0.8% to $69.37.