Stocks Suffer Worst Session Since Pandemic Losses of 2020; China Slaps 34% Tariffs on U.S. Imports; March Jobs +228,000

Thursday was the ultimate risk-off day in the wake of US President Trump's Liberation Day, announcing more aggressive tariffs than most of the dull-headed, so-called "sharpies" on Wall Street supposedly anticipated.

Stocks tumbled (SPX -4.8%, NDX -5.4%, DJI -4%, RUT -6.6%) while the vast majority of sectors saw losses, with Energy, Tech, Consumer Discretionary and Industrials seeing losses greater than 5% on the day.

The only sector to close green was Consumer Staples. Read that again as "buy grocers" and "buy agriculture."

How bad was it? April 3, 2025 was the largest one-day point loss on the NASDAQ, -1,050.44 points, worse than the previous record-holder, March 16, 2020, at ?970.28. That session, at the beginning of the COVID crisis, retains the recod for largest percentage loss of ?12.32%. Thursday's 5.97% loss on the NASDAQ was substantial, though it didn't even make it to the top 20 largest percentage losses.

On the Dow, the loss of 1,679.39 points was the fifth-worse ever, though the percentage loss of -3.98% doesn't even reach the 50 worst individual sessions. The all-time record for point loss was that infamous March 16, 2020 session, in which the Dow declined a massive 2,997.10 points.

The S&P 500 suffered its second-worst point loss ever, ?274.45, again, trailing the March 16, 2020 loss of 324.89 points and ?11.98%, which ranks third in percentage terms, behind October 18, 1987's -20.47 and October 10, 1929's ?12.34% > The ?4.84% posted by the S&P on Thursday was possibly near the bottom of the 100 worst sessions in S&P 500 history.

Incidentally, the Dow Jones Transportation Average was absolutely slaughtered, losing 1,371.64 points and -9.15%, to close at 13,621.34, its lowest level since October, 2023

In weekly terms, it's not quite as grim, though the cumulative effect of the past six weeks is hitting investors where it hurts. Through Thursday's close, thanks to gains Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Dow is down 1037.97 points (2.50%). The NASDAQ has shed 772.38, or 4.48%, and the S&P is down 184.42 (3.30%).

Those figures are likely to become even worse with Friday's trading ahead, as China announced retaliatory tariffs to begin April 10 on all U.S. imports of 34 percent overnight. That's pushed stock futures to levels rivaling Thursday's, with Dow futures off more than 1,000 points, the NASDAQ down more than 500, and the S&P losing about 140 points a half hour prior to the opening bell.

Friday morning's Non-farm payroll reports from the BLS showed 228,000 jobs created in March with the unemployment rate holding steady, at 4.2%. The numbers were largely in line with expectations and pale before the importance of the widening tariff trauma.

Let's play a little inside baseball, as it is that season. There wasn't a soul in lower Manhattan that didn't see this coming a mile away, maybe three or thirty miles away. At least the "best and brightest" should have. The chart patterns of the first three days of this week reveals the Wall Street mango without any skin. Banks and their brokerages bought stocks with client money Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and panic sold those very shares on Thursday. Rest assured, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and various other major players didn't lose a dime today. Their clients, did, but, so what? Things happen.

There's also a preponderance of political overtones to Thursday's whap. Europe hates Trump. CNN hates Trump. Lots of Hollywood big-money actors hate Trump. Democrats, overwhelmingly hate Trump.

Why not give the guy a shot? He's not only one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his generation, he's won the presidency of the United States of America three times!

Perhaps he has more than a little understanding of what he's doing in terms of international trade, commerce, government, taxes, wealth, freedom, and prosperity.

Keep eyes and ears tuned into the mainstream media, AKA, the narrative. Be forewarned, however, excessive viewing of financial news networks can result in loss of focus on your personal wealth and prosperity, which, bottom line, is what really matters and why we're here. Inability, for whatever reason, to manage your own money results in days like Thursday, as nest-eggs were diminished in custodial accounts. The days of passive investing, holding your money at a brokerage over which you have no control, are over. Events of the past 20 or more years should offer enough evidence of the rigged monetary system controlling the United States and much of the rest of the world.

It's like being the head waiter at a house of pleasure. It's a great gig, but you know it's not going to last.

If you want to retire with some dough put away, you should be picking your own investments, allocating your capital yourself. People do it because it's convenient and it works. Without a doubt, returns on equities, globally, have been agreeable if not outstanding since the GFC in '08 and the bottom in '09. Until Thursday.

We're still in the early stages of what is undeniably a bear market. Readers of Money Daily have been well-informed of the recent change in the primary trend and should not have been surprised at the depth of Thursday’s selloff. There's further to go, looking ahead to the first estimate of 1Q 2025 GDP on the last Thursday of April (24th) as the next watershed event. The next three weeks are likely to be quite volatile, with days of gains and losses, but pressure to the downside is likely to dominate consensus thinking.

Markets abhor uncertainty and Trump's tariffs have captured the market. The plan President Trump outlined in the Rose Garden Wednesday afternoon puts a premium on uncertainty, inducing mal-investment and speculation on an even grander scale as through the super-bubble of the last 15 years, give or take.

Trump's tariffs have put everyone on notice: compete or die. The larger objective is to eliminate the wholly unconstitutional personal income tax. There's a reason the current administration went after the IRS with a vengeance early on. They seek to eliminate it. Trump has said so himself on more than a few occasions. In the mind of a businessman, revenue should always exceed expenditures. It's the nature of profitability. Running the government on tariff revenue and eliminating the payroll tax (a holdover from world War II), reduces the burden on the citizenry while putting extra cash in their hands, overall, a win-win for the American middle class.

All that said, markets are set to open on a fearful Friday with everything from gold and silver to stock futures to WTI crude oil, which is trading below $62 per barrel.

At the Close, Thursday, April 3, 2025:
Dow: 40,545.93, -1,679.39 (-3.98%)
NASDAQ: 16,550.61, -1,050.44 (-5.97%)
S&P 500: 5,396.52, -274.45 (-4.84%)
NYSE Composite: 18,767.19, -765.56 (-3.92%)
Dow Transports: 13,621.34, -1,371.64 (-9.15%)

Trump's Tariffs Rattle Markets Globally; Europe Hard Hit; U.S. Stock Futures at Extreme Lows

For the last three sessions, the major indices have followed a nearly identical pattern, beginning with futures down, opening in the red, only to gain throughout the day and finish positive.

Making it four straight is going to take some doing after President Trump sent markets into a tailspin, announcing his worldwide tariffs Wednesday afternoon at a White House Rose Garden ceremony.

Essentially, Trump's tariffs - which became effective at midnight Wednesday - break down thusly:

• Baseline 10% tariff on all imports
• 25% tariffs on all auto imports
• Reciprocal tariffs amounting to 1/2 of the tariffs the target nation imposes on U.S. imports.

Notable among trading partners hit with high tariffs are some of the largest. China: 34%; Taiwan: 32%; India: 26%; Japan: 24%; European Union: 20%.

Goods from Mexico and Canada that comply with the USMCA trade agreement between the three countries will largely remain exempt from tariffs, except for auto exports and steel and aluminum which fall under separate tariff policies.

Trump's bold agenda stunned markets worldwide, sending U.S. stock futures tumbling to extremes. Japan's NIKKEI fell 2.77% in Thursday trading. Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.52%. Markets in China and India were much less affected, finishing the day with marginal losses.

European stocks are having trouble digesting the new trading paradigm.

England's FTSE 100 is down 123.24 points (-1.43%).

Germany's DAX is losing 444.98 points (-1.99%).

France's CAC 40 is down 214.56 (-2.73%).

EURO STOXX 50 has shed 141.99 points (-2.68%).

Euronext 100 Index is down 40.32 (-2.58%).

With less than an hour before the opening bell, the day is shaping up as a painful one all around.

WTI crude oil was hammered overnight and into the morning, down 6.64% at $66.95 per barrel. Gold is well off its recent highs, down $67 at $3,098.50 (-2.15%). Silver has lost more than 7% and is still dropping, around $32.15 per ounce.

While traders may have thought themselves devilishly smart by gaming stocks the first three days of the week, this looks like a condition of "buy the rumor, sell the news" writ large.

Stock futures are ugly: Dow: -1,204 (-2.83%), NASDAQ: -790 (4.00%); S&P 500: -196 (-3.44%).

It will be interesting and instructive to see if the futures result in sustained losses throughout the session or traders opt for bottom fishing at this watershed moment. With tariff trauma the order of the day, Friday's March Non-farm payrolls report from the BLS is looking to be somewhat inconsequential.

At the Close, Wednesday, April 2, 2025:
Dow: 42,225.32, +235.36 (+0.56%)
NASDAQ: 17,601.05, +151.16 (+0.87%)
S&P 500: 5,670.97, +37.90 (+0.67%)
NYSE Composite: 19,532.74, +134.46 (+0.69%)

Gaming the System with Trump Tariffs Today; Best and Worst-Performing Assets of 1Q 2025

For the second straight day, speculators have played chicken with the market, sending stocks on the major indices from morning losses to afternoon gains in what looks to be a "buy the rumor, sell the news" scenario centered upon President Trump's release of his promised tariffs sceduled for 3:00 pm ET Wednesday (today).

Thus far, the zero-day options traders and long-positioned investors have had their way with markets. In consideration of the timing of the tariff announcement, bing late in the trading session, there's a good possibility that trading will follow the same "dare, double dare, triple dare" path right up until the decisive moment, much in the way traders play FOMC policy statements.

On the other hand, the gaming and teasing is likely to have set up shorts with a golden opportunity, able to play put options or outright shorting of stocks and indices from a higher level than anticipated. It's a safe bet that the people sending stocks higher are one and the same that will be shorting Wednesday afternoon. It's just business, how the game is played in the Wall Street casino.

Trump is likely to announce tariffs of up to 20% on trading partners across the global spectrum, with special attention to the usual suspects, China, Japan, and the EU trade bloc, the wild card being the actual date of impostion of said tariffs. While the market anticipates the tariffs to be on the extreme end, there almost certainly will be a lag between today's announcement and the actual levying of tariffs, allowing the administration time for negotiation and new agreements and understandings with various trade partners.

There's also a great potential for retaliatory or "in kind" tariffs levied on U.S. exports into foreign markets. Some countries may consider playing "hard ball" with Trump, suffer the consequences and move ahead with their own priorities.

Bottom line, while April 2nd may indeed be Trump's "Liberation Day," the actual levying and impact may be weeks or months ahead. In that scenario, expect the longs to be on the right side of the trade, sending stocks higher as shorts scramble to cover their - for now - bad bets, leaving global markets on a razor's edge.

Elsewhere, gold and silver continue to reach higher. Early on Wednesday morning, gold futures traded as high as $3,167, silver up to $34.81. Spot markets marked up gold at $3,134 and silver at $34.05.

WTI crude continued to catch the eye, trading as high as $71.93, reflecting the belief that oil will be affected by the coming tariffs. That may be wishful thinking on the part of oil barons. If the tariffs are levied and long-lasting, slowing trade is a real possibility, which would send oil prices lower based on declining demand.

On the labor front, Tuesday's JOLTS report was inconsequential. This morning, ADP reported private employers added 155,000 jobs in March, better than expected, but, with little effect on stock futures, which are tanking. Dow futures: -323; NASDAQ futures: -232; S&P futures: -55.

With Wednesday's game plan in hand, the following - published this morning in the April issue of idleguy.com - takes a look back at 1st quarter winners and losers. (Note: will be updated, reposted as time allows)

To say that the first quarter of 2025 has been turbulent would be understating the obvious. It's been testing, nerve-wracking, and filled with uncertainty.

Of utmost interest at this juncture is trying to understand or game out what comes next and maybe it's worth looking at what has and hasn't worked so far to get some ideas going forward.

Starting with everybody’s favorite (because it’s been so easy), stocks did not perform well at all. The major indices nosedived through the quarter, though the path down wasn’t by any means a straightforward one, as it usually isn’t.

Financial news outlets have been blaring about how the first quarter was the worst since 2022. Boo-hoo! Outside of the quick and ultimately painless COVID collapse of 2020, stocks have been on a straight line to Olympus since the GFC of 2008-09.

Buy and hold investors had such an easy time of it, any little disruption in the force that is Wall Street is seen as some kid of rude, unwarranted intrusion into their almost-perfect existence, where unicorns romp about on the lawns and returns from stock market investments provide for all the luxuries life can afford. Such is the attitude of the horde that has never experienced financial pain and suffering, the kind of dispirited detachment that has preceded almost every other major market correction or crash.

At the same time, those insufferable goldbugs have been making out like masked bandits at a train heist. Whether they’re right or wrong about “honest money”, de-dollarization, or the evils of fractional reserve banking, for the past three months - and for pretty much the past year, two years, and 5 years - they won. They beat the stock market. Get over it.

Rather than debating the finer points of Keynesian or Austrian economics, let’s let the numbers do the talking with the biggest winners and losers of the first quarter of 2025.

Winners	1Q % Gain	Losers	1Q % Loss
Gold	+19.28%	NASDAQ	-10.42%
Silver	+18.37%	S&P 500	-4.59%
S&P 3X Short EFT (SDS)	+9.10%	Dow 30	-1.28%
S&P Bear 3X EFT (SPXS)	+13.38	Tesla (TSLA)	-35.83%
CVS Health (CVS)	+52.79	Nvidia (NVDA)	-19.29%
Okta (OKTA)	+33.53%	Apple (AAPL)	-11.30%
Germany (DAX)	+11.32%	Microsoft (MSFT)	-10.94%
Philip Morris (PM)	+33.06%	Amazon (AMZN)	-13.36%
France (CAC)	+6.52%	Astera Labs (ALAB)	-54.95%
England (FTSE)	+5.01%	Trade Desk (TTD)	-53.44%
Newmont (NEM)	+30.48%	Alphabet (GOOG)	-17.96%
SuperMicro (SMCI)	+12.14%	Teradyne (TER)	-34.40%
AT&T (T)	+25.79%	On Semi (ON)	-35.46%
Hong Kong (HSI)	+15.25%	United Airlines (UAL)	-28.89%
Kroger (KR)	+10.70%	Delta Airlines (DAL)	-27.93%
Copper	+24.81%	Deckers (DECK)	-44.95%
Spain (IBEX)	+13.29%	Lululemon (LULU)	-25.98%
Harmony Gold (HMY)	+79.90	Best Buy (BBY)	-14.21%
Agilon Health (AGL)	+227.89	Williams Sonoma (WSM)	-14.62%
ExxonMobil (XOM)	+10.56%	Nike (NKE)	-16.11%
Visa (V)	+10.89%	Carnival (CCL)	-21.63%
Verizon (VZ)	+13.43%	Bitcoin (BTC)	-10.63%
Deere & Co. (DE)	+10.78%	Etherium (ETH)	-45.26%
Coca-Cola (KO)	+15.03%	Cardano (ADA)	-21.42%
Yum! Brands (YUM)	+17.29%	XRP (XRP)	-32.05%
Chevron (CVX)	+15.50%	Dogecoin (DOGE)	-46.18%

The figures presented here represent gains or loss from December 31, 2024 through March 31, 2025. As such, some may be a little distorted or skewed due to the timing of the readings. In the case of the major indices, for instance, the end of December was near a low off late November - early December highs. Additionally, stocks rallied strongly in January before leveling off in February and falling in March.

Admittedly, it was a lot easier to find losers than winners. When almost everything is moving in the same direction, it’s tough to find those who are swimming upstream, against the general flow.

Now, there you have it. Do you now sell the winners and buy the losers? Or vice versa, doubling down on success and/or failure. While catching falling knives is usually left to circus performers, it’s equally dangerous to believe that some kind of bottom has been put in place and those stocks or assets that crashed and burned for the past three months are going to suddenly reverse course and rise majestically like the sun over Mount Fiji.

That kind of thing only happens in movies, and usually in bad ones.

A bit of nibbling might satisfy the animal spirits, but most professionals are urging a more cautious and patient approach. It would be prudent to keep an eye out for complete capitulation before attempting to go “all in.” It’s times like these that one needs to appreciate the difference between return on capital and return of capital.

One asset that managed to hold itself together pretty well was cash. Those good old crinkly Federal Reserve Notes didn’t lose as much as a percent or two, and, depending on what you were buying with it, might even had a slight uptick in value.

One thing that wasn’t useful to spend cash on was gasoline. Even though fuel is down from a year ago (thank God!) prices at the pump actually increased during the first three months of 2025, compared with November and December of 2024. Regional differences and urban/rural differentials vary, but overall, gas prices that seemed to be going down are actually going back up.

One might have been able to procure some savings at the supermarket, depending on whether or not you enjoy eggs for breakfast every morning. Prices have been sliding in most locales the past few months. Nothing great, but big chains like Krogers, Publix, Wegman’s and others have been experiencing some oversupply in certain categories and have been marking down, often substantially. One thing Americans don’t have to worry about is starvation. We have plenty of food, the trick being able to afford to buy it.

Cars, both used and new, have come down to more reasonable levels. How much of the reasonableness occurred in the first quarter is probably more a matter of how well your local dealer is doing and your skills of negotiation. America also has no shortage of cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, RVs, and ATVs.

Looking both backwards and forwards, stock charts of the major averages from the first quarter appear eerily similar to those of the first quarter of 2022. That 2022 downturn didn’t end until November. If stocks are headed on a similar trajectory, there are further declines ahead. If not, well, there are going to be a lot of speculators walking funny for being wrong-footed at the most opportune time. It’s a tough call, but the bears seem to be having their way of late. There may be a bit of turbulence before Elon Musk’s rocket reaches maximum thrust, headed for Trump’s “golden age.”

The choice is yours as to which ways your financial well-being should proceed. Choose wisely. Or, like most people with passive investment accounts, let a “professional” choose for you. After all, they know best, don’t they? At the Close, Tuesday, April 1, 2025: Dow: 41,989.96, -11.80 (-0.03%) NASDAQ: 17,449.89, +150.60 (+0.87%) S&P 500: 5,633.07, +21.22 (+0.38%) NYSE Composite: 19,398.28, +2.42 (+0.01%)

Trump Tariff Trauma Being Played to the Hilt by Wall Street Sharps; Gold Continues Record-Breaking Streak; JOLTS Due 10 AM

Monday's day-long buying spree - after futures sent the majors to lows of the day just after the open - was largely the result of momentum traders playing 0DTE (Zero Days to Expiration) options and dumb money piling in to pump the market in what can only be considered a prototypical bear market rally.

The Dow round-tripped to the tune of 900 points from the morning lows into the goosed-up close for a neat one percent gain. The S&P and NYSE Composite followed the same pattern, while the NASDAQ, which was down nearly 470 points before 10:00 am ET, didn't quite make it to positive ground, but it wasn't for lack of effort, closing down a mere 23 points.

Call Monday's trading the pump part of the pump-and-dump, because Tuesday (and probably Wednesday) is going to start off pretty darn ugly. Sooner or later - with Trump's tariffs set to launch on Wednesday, the markets are likely to resume their downward trajectory. Today could be a capitulation-like event, as there aren't many traders keen on holding overnight into Wednesday's tariff reveal, especially after the Washington Post ran a story Tuesday morning citing Trump officials saying that 20% across-the-board tariffs could be unleashed April 2nd.

Trump, admittedly a "superstitious guy", didn't want to start off his tariff tsunami on April Fool's Day, purposely pushing back the timing to April 2nd. That seems to have been right up Wall Street's alley, giving the sharpies an additional day of game-playing with people's retirement and speculation accounts.

With the opening bell due to ring within minutes, stock futures are bouncing off the morning lows. Dow futures: -158; NASDAQ futures: -51; S&P futures: -14.

Meanwhile, gold continues to ramp higher, hitting another in a series of all-time highs overnight into the U.S. AM, hitting a high of $3,176 on the COMEX. Silver is still struggling with $35 on the COMEX, with spot prices hanging in the high $33 range.

The March JOLTS survey is due out at 10:00 am ET.

Let's get ready to rumble, fools!

At the Close, Monday, March 31, 2025:
Dow: 42,001.76, +417.86 (+1.00%)
NASDAQ: 17,299.29, -23.70 (-0.14%)
S&P 500: 5,611.85, +30.91 (+0.55%)
NYSE Composite: 19,395.86, +125.56 (+0.65%)