US stocks careened through a manic Monday after President Donald Trump threatened to crank his tariffs higher, despite a stunning display showing how dearly Wall Street wants him to do the opposite.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% at the end of a day full of heart-racing reversals as battered financial markets try to figure out what Mr Trump’s ultimate goal is for his trade war.
If it is to get other countries to agree to trade deals, he could lower his tariffs and avoid a possible recession. But if it is to remake the economy and stick with tariffs for the long haul, stock prices may need to fall further.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 349 points, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by 0.1%.
All three indexes started the day sharply lower, and the Dow plunged as many as 1,700 points following even worse losses elsewhere in the world.
But it suddenly surged to a gain of nearly 900 points in the late morning. The S&P 500, meanwhile, went from a loss of 4.7% to a leap of 3.4%, which would have been its biggest jump in years.
The sudden rise followed a false rumour that Mr Trump was considering a 90-day pause on his tariffs, one that a White House account on X quickly labelled as “fake news”. That a rumour could move trillions of dollars’ worth of investments shows how much investors are hoping to see signs that Mr Trump may let up on tariffs.
Stocks quickly turned back down, and shortly afterwards Mr Trump dug in further and said he may raise tariffs more against China after the world’s second-largest economy retaliated last week with its own set of tariffs on US products.
It is a slap in the face to Wall Street because it suggests Mr Trump may not care how much pain he inflicts on the market. Many professional investors had long thought that a president who used to crow about records reached under his watch would pull back on policies if they sent the Dow reeling.
On Sunday Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was not concerned about a sell-off and that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”.
A screen showing stock prices at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York earlier on Monday (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
Mr Trump has given several reasons for his stiff tariffs, including to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, which is a process that could take years. Mr Trump on Sunday said he wanted to bring down the numbers for how much more the United States imports from other countries versus how much it sends to them.
Indexes nevertheless did keep swinging between losses and gains on Monday after Mr Trump’s latest tariff threat, in part because hope still remains in markets that negotiations may still come.
“We’re not calling the all-clear at all, but when you have this type of volatility in the market, of course you’re going to have back and forth” in markets not just day to day but also hour to hour, said Nate Thooft, a senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management.
“We’re all waiting for the next bit of information,” he said. “Literally a Truth Social tweet or an announcement of some sort about real negotiations could dramatically move this market. This is the world we live in right now.”
All that seemed certain on Monday was the financial pain hammering investments around the world for a third day after Mr Trump announced tariffs in his “Liberation Day”.
Stocks in Hong Kong plunged 13.2% for their worst day since 1997. A barrel of benchmark US crude oil dipped below 60 dollars during the morning for the first time since 2021, hurt by worries that a global economy weakened by trade barriers will burn less fuel.
Bitcoin sank below 79,000 dollars, down from its record above 100,000 dollars set in January, after holding steadier than other markets last week.
Mr Trump’s tariffs are an attack on the globalisation that has remade the world’s economy, which helped bring down prices for products on the shelves of US stores but also caused production jobs to leave for other countries.
It also adds pressure on the Federal Reserve. Investors have become nearly conditioned to expect the central bank to swoop in as a hero by slashing interest rates to protect the economy during every downturn.
But the Fed may have less freedom to act this time around because inflation remains higher than the Fed would like. And while lower interest rates can goose the economy, they can also put upward pressure on inflation.
“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon, one of the most influential executives on Wall Street, wrote in his annual letter to shareholders Monday.
“Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.”
In the bond market, Treasury yields rallied to recover some of their sharp drops from earlier weeks. Some of the big move may have been because of reduced expectations for cuts to interest rates by the Fed. Some analysts also said it could be due to investors outside of the United States wanting to pare their US investments.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.20% from 4.01% late on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the S&P 500 briefly fell more than 20% below its record set less than two months ago.
If it had finished the day below that bar, it would be a big enough drop that Wall Street has a name for it. A “bear market” signifies a downturn that has moved beyond a run-of-the-mill 10% drop, which happens every year or so, and has graduated into something more vicious.
The S&P 500, which sits at the heart of many investors’ 401(k) (retirement) accounts, is coming off its worst week since Covid-19 began crashing the global economy in March 2020.
All told, the index fell 11.83 points on Monday to 5,062.25. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 349.26 to 37,965.60, and the Nasdaq composite added 15.48 to 15,603.26.
