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Markets Don’t Like Maybes
Danny Riley
April 02, 2025
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This is not an easy game. The ES sold off hard Sunday night into Monday’s open, made an early low, then rallied 139 points and opened lower Tuesday, rallied again, and then failed. Like I said in the MTS chat, the ES and NQ have the 'Trump tariff blues,' and even though he is scheduled to talk today at 4:00pm in the Rose Garden, I doubt we’ve heard the last of his tariff shenanigans.
The ES made a 5663.50 high on Globex and a 5650 high during the day session. After the open it sold off down to 5600.25 at 10:20 and rallied 94.5 points up to 5694.75 at 12.20. It seems like 100 or 100+ point ranges are now an everyday occurrence.
Like at the end of February and March, when there were all those forecasts of ES 5900.00. Maybe after Trump does his April 2nd 4:00 PM ET speech, the markets will breathe a bit, but what the bulls continue to learn is you can't buy strength. And to back that up, the ES sold off 69 points down to the 5629 area at 2:40 and then traded 5670 at the 3:50 imbalance, which showed 1.1 billion to buy.
Trump’s Liberation Day (today) is set to announce 'sweeping tariffs,' and the EU says it's ready to respond. Trump is scheduled to speak at 4:00 ET from the White House Rose Garden, and investors are bracing for the headlines. I think the administration should have been more methodical in its approach toward the endless tariffs and deadlines, but Trump thinks he's the master of deal-making. So far, every tariff has been responded to with counter-tariffs against the U.S. What it's done is turn friendly partners into pissed-off partners at a time when the world is dealing with high inflation and pushing the U.S. into a recession. Not something Trump's voter base was counting on, and it’s helped destabilize the U.S. stock market in the process.
And to be honest, I doubt this will be the last of the tariffs. The S&P and NASDAQ have had a difficult quarter, with both notching their worst quarters since 2022. It’s pushed investors overseas and led some top analysts to trim their forecasts for economic growth.