Stock-market investors are playing defense today.

The major U.S. indexes are in retreat Thursday morning, with the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq down substantially shortly after the open. (Read Investopedia's live coverage of today's market action here .) Meanwhile, all but one of the S&P 500's 11 sectors are in the red—with the sole exception of consumer staples considered defensive in nature—on the back of yesterday's announcement of sweeping global tariffs by President Donald Trump.

Consumer staples stocks are broadly rising, including Colgate-Palmolive ( CL ), Procter & Gamble ( PG ), and frozen potato company Lamb Weston ( LW ), the latter which is among the morning's top gainers in the benchmark index, rising nearly 8% after reporting results .

Some other big consumer-oriented brands are rising today, including McDonald's ( MCD ) and Coca-Cola ( KO ), as well as grocer Kroger ( KR ), and cereal maker General Mills ( GIS ). Walmart's ( WMT ) shares ticked lower.

Meanwhile, discretionary and tech shares are dropping, the former sector retreating more than 6% in early action. Among the index's top decliners today are housewares company Williams Sonoma ( WSM ), consumer electronics retailer Best Buy ( BBY ), and game and toy company Hasbro ( HAS ).

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