Tariffs, Recession, Inflation and the S&P 500

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Trump set off a bomb on the stock market Sunday, warning about a potential recession, and followed it up yesterday with comments on war and a US economic transition. The result? The wheels came off the wagon—consumer confidence is falling off a cliff.

Everything was moving: bonds, grains, gold, silver, Bitcoin—you name it, it was in motion. The ES traded down to 5578.75 just after 3:05 PM, then rallied to 5641 by 3:37 PM. The NQ plunged to 19,272.25, down over 930 points at 3:07 PM and like almost every day the index markets got whacked and rallied up to 19,551 after 3:00 PM and settled at 19,463.50, 190.75 points off its low.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 suffered some of the deepest losses on the day, falling 3.8%, its largest single-day drawdown since October 2022. At its intraday low, the index was down 4.7%, wiping out over $1 trillion in market value. The Magnificent 7—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, and Meta—were hit hard, falling between 2% and 5%. Overall, the US stock market lost a staggering $4 trillion in value yesterday.

I tried to post updates on X, but Elon Musk reported that the platform was under a massive cyberattack.

The Pit Bull had a few comments to make about the day’s trade. He said what's going on is real, that we all know how far Bitcoin can drop—it could fall 50% or even down to 59,000 and he said he can’t express how bad the stock charts look.

It’s apparent that Trump’s tariffs, eroding confidence in AI spending, and a batch of disappointing inflation and labor data have turned on the selling spigot.

Is it over? I don’t think so. But after three weeks of down, you have to wonder when the bounce is coming but the markets still need to get past Wednesday’s CPI number and Thursday’s PPT.