Stocks Slide Helped Along by Trump Tariff Narrative; Gold, Silver Rebounding; Oil Continues Lower

The week began on a very sour note as the major indices suffered another in a series of severe selloffs, this one resulting in the worst one-day drop for the S&P 500 so far in 2025.

The NASDAQ has ended lower six of the last eight sessions and close Monday right at its 200-day moving average thanks to a 120-point boost in the final 15 minutes of trading. On a year-to-date measure, only the Dow is positive for the year, clinging to gains of about 1.5%. The NASDAQ will likely test correction territory some time today. A 10 percent decline from its December 16 high (20,173.89) is 18,156.10.

For those still faithful to Dow Theory, the Dow Jones Transportation Average is already down 11.56% from its November high. The Industrials would have to hit a number below 40,512.64 in order to confirm a change in the primary trend, in this case, from bull to bear. That's still more than 2,500 points lower from Monday's close. 45,014.04 was the closing high on December 4 for the Industrial Average.

The damage to stocks has become palpable and undeniable. Conveniently, the pumpers, cheerleaders, and mainstream media pundits will be able to place blame for all of the stock market and the economy's woes squarely on President Trump and his newly-enacted policies, most prominent the efforts of Elon Musk's DOGE team to downsize the federal government and Trump's tariffs, which are being imposed as of Tuesday, today.

Trump's 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico are going into effect today. Duties on Chinese goods have been doubled, from 10% to 20%. In retaliatory fashion, China will impose additional 10%-15% tariffs on certain U.S. imports next week, and expanded export controls on U.S. companies. Canada has responded with immediate 25% tariffs on U.S. imports worth more than $20 billion, and will expand that to imports worth over $86 billion if Trump's tariffs remain in effect for 21 days. Mexico is also expected to announce retaliatory tariffs later today.

Making Trump the scape-goat for the bubble in stocks that had to be popped at some point provides an easy way out for Wall Street minions who have been keeping their fingers down on the BUY button since November, 2023, and, obviously, before that. Many stocks in the S&P 500 and the broader NASDAQ have been losing ground with revenue and profits below year prior levels while their share prices have gone up. Brokers and money managers, who have piled client money into passive, overpriced investments can, and will, blame tariffs and Trump.

Unemployment will be blamed on Trump and Musk, when the fact of the matter remains that the federal (and many state and local) government has been overloaded with loafers and make-work flunkies, many of whom have not had to report into their offices since the pandemic in 2020. While Trump and Musk do what's needed to restore sanity and economy to government spending, the mainstream media will vilify them both as nasty and uncaring.

The same goes for the general economy, which is expected to fall into recession this quarter if it hasn't been in one already. It will all be Trump's fault. Count on it.

Meanwhile, gold and silver have rebounded from last week's trouncing, with gold, which was as low as $2,845, and silver, which fell to $31.21, on Friday, have bounced back to $2,932 and $32.21 as of Tuesday morning.

There still seems to be no hope for WTI crude and the oil market in general. OPEC is lifting production quotas despite the obvious glut in the market. WTI fell to a low of $67.10 this morning. It's already in a bear market.

Stock futures are down across the board as the opening bell approaches. Dow: -110; NASDAQ: -85; S&P: -18.

Should be quite the show today and through Friday when the BLS announces February Non-farm payrolls.

At the Close, Monday, March 3, 2025:
Dow: 43,191.24, -649.67 (-1.48%)
NASDAQ: 18,350.19, -497.09 (-2.64%)
S&P 500: 5,849.72, -104.78 (-1.76%)
NYSE Composite: 19,823.48, -204.71 (-1.02%)