NEW YORK, March 12 — The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended down slightly yesterday with investors preparing for this week’s consumer and producer price data, which they hope will provide a better idea of whether the Federal Reserve can begin cutting interest rates in the coming months.

Boeing shares eased 3 per cent. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said yesterday he expects the planemaker to cooperate in investigations by the Justice Department and National Transportation Safety Board into the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency on January 5.

The industrial sector also was lower, while the Dow edged higher.

US consumer price data for February is due today, with expectations for a monthly increase of 0.4 per cent and 3.1 per cent on an annual basis. The US producer price report is due on Thursday.

“These tend to be more volatile ... and certainly the market will move with them,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. “There’s certainly a camp out there saying we’re going to have renewed inflation — or there’s a good possibility of that — and then there’s certainly a camp that says we’re going to have deflation, and that will allow the Fed to lower rates. It’s always tricky.”

Data showing signs of a robust economy slowed the stock market’s rally last month as traders pushed back expectations on the timing of the first Fed rate cut to June from March.

The Fed’s next rate-setting meeting is next week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 46.97 points, or 0.12 per cent, to 38,769.66, the S&P 500 lost 5.75 points, or 0.11 per cent, to 5,117.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 65.84 points, or 0.41 per cent, to 16,019.27.

Chip stocks extended recent declines, with Nvidia ending down 2 per cent, Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O falling 4.3 per cent and Broadcom declining 1.2 per cent.

Shares of Equitrans Midstream edged up 1.5 per cent after EQT Corp EQT.N said yesterday it had decided to buy back its former unit in an all-stock deal. EQT shares slid 7.8 per cent.

Volume on US exchanges was 10.90 billion shares, compared with the 12.06 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.07-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.45-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 53 new highs and 74 new lows.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New YorkAdditional reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan in BengaluruEditing by Pooja Desai and Matthew Lewis)

UPDATE 1-Ford to pay US$365 million in US import tariff evasion case

Adds share price, Ford comment, DOJ comment

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) — Ford Motor F.N will pay US$365 million to resolve US allegations it violated a federal tariff law by misclassifying and understating the value of hundreds of thousands of its Transit Connect vehicles.

The Justice Department said the settlement resolves allegations that Ford devised a scheme to avoid higher duties by misclassifying cargo vans imported from Turkiye from April 2009 to March 2013.

The government said the settlement is one of the largest customs penalty settlements in recent history.

“Ford strongly disagrees with many of the characterizations in the DOJ’s statement and admits no liability in this matter,” a Ford spokesperson said. “But in the interest of moving on from this complex, decade-old dispute, we have agreed to settle the matter once and for all.”

Customs and Border Protection ruled in 2013 that Transit Connects imported as passenger wagons and later converted into cargo vans were subject to the 25 per cent duty applicable to cargo vehicles, rather than the 2.5 per cent passenger vehicle duty.

The Justice Department said Ford imported the vehicles “with sham rear seats and other temporary features to make the vans appear to be passenger vehicles. These temporary rear seats were never intended to be, and never were, used to carry passengers.”

Ford included these seats and features to avoid paying the 25 per cent duty rate, the government said.

After Customs clearance, the Transit Connect vehicles were immediately stripped of rear seats and returned to its original identity as a two-seat cargo van.

“The government will not permit companies to evade duties by adding sham features to their products and then misclassifying them,” said Brian Boynton, head of the DOJ Civil Division.

Ford said in 2021 it could face up to US$1.3 billion in penalties in a long-running dispute over import duties paid on Ford Transit Connect vehicles after the Supreme Court declined to hear its appeal in 2020 that it paid increased duties for some prior imports.

The 25 per cent tariff stems from a 1960s trade war involving frozen chicken, and the larger tariff on cargo vehicles is known as the “chicken tax.”

Ford shares were down 0.5 per cent. — Reuters