Today’s Stock Market Update

Thursday April 10, 2025: Markets are Down Today

After all the drama of putting the global reciprocal tariffs into effect, President Trump announced a 90 pause on them, with the exception of China which will suffer a 125% tariff.

That change likely came on the heels of China announcing an 84% tariff on US goods. It almost seems Trump was setting them up for a fall. Yesterday, the Dow Jones, NASDAQ, S&P, and Russell 2000 rocketed for one of their largest one-day gains ever. And the rise of some stocks was simply shocking. Stock prices rose fast but leveled off toward the end of the trading day. TSLA dropped 6.4%, FANG down 8%, TALO down 11%, and NVDA fell 4.8% after a big runup yesterday.

Today, markets have dropped again, apparently all part of a tariff strategy by Trump to gain compliance from other trading partners and ease them into the longer-term US plan to reindustrialize. There are concerns now of a selloff in the bond market. The treasury market is seeing a 3 day sell off as well.

Energy and tech stocks are leading the way downward, and we wonder how deep this one will be.  US CPI fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in March, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.4%, down from 2.8% in February. Fast falling inflation to some, indicates a slowing economy.

Today’s drop looks somewhat like a hangover from the temporary tariff pause order euphoria yesterday, yet Trump continues with his agenda, with a huge billion-dollar funding retraction to some of the most privileged US universities. That reminds of his intent to reverse the excessive often outrageous spending stream of the Biden Democrats.

Wacko Bond and Treasury Market

This morning, the 10-year Treasury yield fell 7 basis points at 4.326%, and the 2-year Treasury yield also dropped more than 11 basis points to 3.837%. Yesterday, the 10-year Treasury climbed to over 4.51% at its highest, driven by unusual volatility in the bond market.

A theme that came up this afternoon is the Trump administration’s effort to present the 90-day pause on tariffs as something that had been in the works for a while, rather than a sudden reaction to chaos on the markets. Trump said he’d been thinking about a pause “over the last few days” but the idea “probably came together this morning” and he just “wrote it up.”

“We didn’t have access to lawyers or anything. We just wrote it up from our hearts. It was written from the heart. It was written as something that was very positive for the world and for us,” Trump said today of the tariff break.

“This was something, certainly, we’d been talking about for a period of time and we decided to pull the trigger.”

It’s rumored that the Trump administration may consider lifting the export ban on Nvidia’s H20 chips to China. That would be entirely unwise given the conflict to give your economic rival that advanced AI chipset, however, it could help to undermine China’s own advanced processor development. Nvidia’s stock rocketed upon that additional report.

CNBC reports that “White House advisors claimed the flip flop was always the strategy, suggesting that the past week of massive tariffs that triggered huge market losses was all for show.”

It’s likely, the reciprocal tariffs are simply too much too soon and Trump releases he has to slow down until the US is ready to meet the challenge of his reindustrialization plan.  However, in 3 months, he’ll reimplement them to allow the country to move forward. He is not abandoning is MAGA principles.

He was not so favorable to China whose tariff rate grows to 125% immediately. Beijing has announced a reciprocal 84% tariff rate on U.S. goods, effective April 10. If the two countries were not splitting apart as trade partners, it is abundantly evident now.  USA is fully xChina.  Of course, China still produces a lot of needed products and the higher cost will affect many industries across the United States, and affect the USMCA business activities.

It’s unknown at this time whether acting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has retracted his US tariff hike threat on the US. It appears Trump has spared Canadians a heavy blow to their economy, yet the recent 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico remain.   The auto manufacturing appears to be his pet tariff project.

The tariff delay will slow investment funds into the US, given investors aren’t sure if he can or will implement the tariffs and stay true to his stated agenda. Investors may have strong doubts about his sanity and integrity after today’s actions.

Massive Jumps for all Sectors

As noted, tech sector stocks rocketed by 14.15%, while consumer discretionaries rebounded by 11.36%. Industrials (+8.97%), Materials (+8.63%) and Communication Services rounded out the top 5 gainers.

WTI Oil hit $55 but after the news, it is back $62.62 tonight. Strangely, natural gas dove 2.18%, but this is in response to Trump’s announcement of coal production in the US. As he noted, coal is half the cost of natural gas and will be important in various smelting operations in steel, copper and aluminum. Keep an alert on Trump announcements this year regarding deregulation, something that could have the greatest impact of all on US manufacturing, real estate, and banking.

Yesterday, the stock market took another dip as the DOW slipped .84%, S&P 500 down 1.57%, NASDAQ fell 2.15%, and Russell 2000 receded 2.73%.  Materials, consumer discretionary, energy and real estate took the largest losses on the day.

Tariffs Are The Top Story

More tariff announcements are likely today.  President Trump’s announcements yesterday were telling and reaffirmed for the hard of hearing, that he intends to reindustrialize America.  Democrat media is responding with stories that reindustrialization in America is impossible, with cartoons of senior citizens and disabled older Caucasian Americans working in factory jobs. At some point, the business media and hedge fund managers will capitulate to the realization that US protectionism is a real thing.

World Market Report

European and Asian markets saw another round of losses today. Chart below courtesy of Yahoo Finance shows Europe was too late to respond to the latest announcement from Trump.

Trump was asked if he would be open to pausing the tariffs to allow for negotiations, and his response: “We’re not looking at that” sent stock prices and commodities plunging once more. The new tariff rate on China is 104% as of now. Stay tuned!

A number of politicians and corporate leaders say they’re frustrating with the lack of absolute certainty they need, but Trump has said repeatedly, his priorities are US-based companies who build products in the USA.  It seems they’re not able to process that insist that we’ll return to Biden era priorities. Today’s talk doubles down the US reindustrialization imperative. Companies just need to move forward.

April is normally the second strongest month of the year so we’ll see if the coming earnings reports can salvage some of the massive losses in the last 5+ weeks.  Today’s rise might be just the usual mood swing and recovery from the negativity of the tariff wars.

China’s Decisions to Raise their Tariffs Will Accelerate the Market Plunge

Republican Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reiterated messages that China’s tariff threats would be a bad decision, yet Trump said that “China wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started. We are waiting for their call.” It’s likely a bit of mind games as Trump’s negative view of China and their American investors is exposed.  Trump reports on progress with South Korea too, so this would suggest he is leaning toward making some negotiating with a few nations to avoid a devastating trade war.

This event tells us all investors are hanging on a thread, willing to believe whatever the media tell them. There hope Trump will back down on the reciprocal tariffs, but in a statement yesterday, he reiterated his full intent to correct the massive trade deficit and reduce the debt interest payments and US national debt.

These moments of relief about the tariff war and the oppressive weight of the trade deficit and US debt, give investors another view of the US stock market forecast. There is hope the US can get through the transition period to reindustrialization which opens up a vast sea of opportunity. We may have bottomed out yesterday, but it’s likely many investors are shying away from the stock market. Those who sold their US stocks off in the plunge are really unfortunate. Those who buy in April will likely become wealthy. ROI from that won’t happen for some time, although some experts believe this will be a V-shaped recovery.

Gold is up $5 yet Oil, Natural Gas, Gasoline are all down today.

Still at this point, the NASDAQ, S&P, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones are down considerably on the year. For buy the dip investors, there remains a good deal of upside as we progress toward 2026. Important for investors to review is the effect of massive trillion dollar investment inflows which should have a big effect on factory construction and aid infrastructure development.

Reports are that the FED and J Powell will cut rates next month. Yet a small .25% cut is merely symbolic, and suggests Trump is winning the battle on inflation. With the price of oil falling ($59 a barrel) and consumer spending likely plummeting (no numbers on that yet), you’d have to believe we could see deflation soon.

Powell counters that tariffs will lead to higher inflation, suggesting that slower growth wouldn’t deflect it. He is forecasting stagflation. A slow economy is not wise if the US must provide its own inputs in this reindustrialization process, which means Powell needs to cut the rate. Experts believe there will be 5 rate cuts this year, so they must have gloomy economic forecasts, or believe inflation will fall significantly and thus hamper growth.

Today’s Fear Greed Index

Investors are feeling more skittish than ever and today’s news might entrench them further into any ideas of investing.  However, although the market won’t hit bottom until later this week, there are incredible bargains in US stocks. This week, investors need to do their valuation research and come up with the best stocks to buy. Given Nvidia and Palantir are already climbing, the US technology sector looks to be the clear winner.

It was All About Inflation Right?

That was then, this is now. Trump could be right about inflation being beaten, despite claims by some analysts that inflation will be sticky.  The FEDs move today clearly reveals even they feel it’s done.

Talk of interest rate changes are subdued or missing, however, AI chipmaker stocks are booming suggesting investors are in a 2025 state of mind and optimism is being released into the economic bloodstream.

For this week ahead, the markets may take another big hit.  Now that Trump has spoken, we can only wait for European and Asian leaders to respond. Of course, China has already announced reciprocal tariffs of 34%, a move that could collapse the China economy.  China is deeply dependent on the US.

We were waiting to gauge the real force of the US tariffs and the weight of the counter-tariffs and it looks like the worst case scenario as world leaders believe they could gang up on Trump. In reality, he has all best cards, and the US is not dependent on selling to the rest of the world. The US is a key net importer from the world.

Smart leaders in some nations are weighing their options, and as their numbers plummet, they will be calling Trump again to make deals. The wait and see will be over. Those such as the EU leader proclaim a desire to punish Trump for pulling the plug, could damage the EU considerably.

The Chinese ban on US corn and soybeans could be the start of something much better, and healthier for Americans. Corn fructose for instance is implicated in America’s massive health problem and the health care debt it suffers from. If things couldn’t get worst, then any change might be for the better. We’re looking forward to the events happening this week. Perhaps soon, investors and small business entrepreneurs in the US will have the certainty they crave.

Market Forecasts for 2025

Others including Ed Yardeni quoted in a CNBC interview says the S&P could hit 7,000 by end of 2025.

JP Morgan’s Lakos-Bujas, their global equity strategy team wrote that continued “US exceptionalism,” continued earnings growth, and interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve will be a tailwind for stocks in the year ahead. He argued the US is likely to remain the “global growth engine with the business cycle in expansion, healthy labor market, broadening of AI-related capital spending, and prospect of robust capital market and deal activity.”

Investors Spirit: The Trump Trade?

Investors will be listening more keenly now to President Trump and his plan to bring the economy back to health and support the stock market.

If the “Trump trade” is a real thing, and expert forecasters including Tom Lee of Fundstrat believe it is, then the Dow and Russell 2000 will go much further. Small caps and small businesses in general have been plagued with high interest rates, inflation and high taxes.

The talk about small business isn’t prominent, so the Trump regime will likely be called out at some point about the “rich get richer” problem that is actually becoming a massive economic problem. Poor workers can’t really stimulate an economy, so the correct solution for a roaring US economy is higher wages and more employment, which in turn raise inflation.

The key to the outlook is supply and this is where deregulation comes in. The Democrats cut off supply to American companies rasing costs and reducing their sales. As supply grows, US companies will be more competitive. The empowerment and growing sales of small businesses will power up the US economy greatly. That hasn’t been factored into stock market forecasts, because these reports only feature large, publicly owned companies.

If it is all about inflation and a likely return to Pro-USA FED economic policies, then US stocks are looking really promising. Today’s reports of lower inflation and yesterday’s great US GDP report gave the markets a good lift.

Today’s Price Growth Leaders

United States Steel Corp, Janover Inc. Supermicro Computer, Scorpion, and Teekay Tankers lead the way of winners.

Inflation Easing Steadily?

Truflation’s Inflation index shows a progressive upward inflationary trend but far from the levels of the pandemic. That will buoy the 5 year and long term forecasts.  See more on the weekly, three month and six months projections.  If it’s all about inflation, then investors should be moving their money out of money markets and bank accounts now to get in on what could be a once in a lifetime burst in value.

Best Performing Sectors Today

The best-performing sectors today are consumer staples, health care, and  real estate.

TESLA Real Time

Google Stock Real Time

Amazon Stock Real Time

 

There’s a number of investing sites and data sources which help you get quotes on today’s prices and more on the current status of the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ. See more on Facebook stock, Google stock and Tesla stock.

Top Stocks Overall Today

Find more insight into what’s going on in the stock market this week, be sure to check out the stock market predictions post and the best stocks to buy now posts. There you’ll find the key issues driving the market right now and what will influence it this week, 3 months from now and next year.  Yahoo Finance has a broad array of stock market information including real time tickers and economic news.

More on Stock Market Forecasts:

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