U.S. stocks will lose nearly 8% in the first 100 days of Donald Trump's second term, the worst start for the new administration since he took office fifty years ago.
Wall Street's S&P 500 fell 0.4%. This has fallen by 8% since the opening day as Trump’s positive trade agenda released volatility, which has caused investors’ confidence in the outlook for U.S. growth to stir up concerns about the rebound of tariff-induced inflation in the world’s largest economy.
The blue chip index reached record highs in mid-February, and finally dropped further in the first 100 days of the presidential term in the second half of 1974, when Ford entered the White House after Richard Nixon's resignation, according to the Financial Times' calculations.
U.S. stocks then fell into short selling by the recession and rapid rise in oil prices.
Strategists and investors say half a century later, Trump's efforts to hit the global trading system with "countdown" tariffs on most countries have put U.S. financial markets into new turmoil.
"We decided to fight every kid on the playground at the same time," said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. "The market tells us whether the U.S. has an advantage when the U.S. is in the rest of the world."
According to George Pearkes, a macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, investors have been shocked in recent months by attacks from trade-related announcements.
Stocks stumbled after Trump issued a tariff announcement on April 2, but have recovered many losses after most of the taxes were delayed by 90 days.
"My model is Wile E. Coyote, his legs are spinning in the air, trying to figure out the cliff we just jumped off," Pierkes said.
The decline in markets this year caught most Wall Street investors who predicted a boom under tax cuts, abandoned Republican administrations. In recent weeks, the 10 largest U.S. banks have cut their year-end S&P 500 share price target, starting from dollar-denominated assets.
Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Management, said investors “have the right to feel exhausted.”
She added that Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff blitz “catalyzed market chaos”, “Another, again, the biggest uncertainty of tariff policies, which were regularly interrupted by the administration’s statements to reassure and downgrade.”
Foreign investors began to own a record year in record U.S. stocks, but have sold about $60 billion since early March, according to Goldman Sachs. The Eurocurrency Manager drives most of the sales.
Investor responses to Trump's unstable tariff announcement were also subject to US dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds.
In the stock market, the recent surge in U.S. tech stocks were subject to Trump tariffs and the emergence of Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, which shocked investors in January when it claimed to have built a large language model for a fraction of the cost of its Silicon Valley competitors.
According to an analysis by Citigroup, in December, Tesla, Tesla, Letters, NVIDIA and META (the so-called Magnificent Seven members) were an analysis by Citigroup.
Citi said in a note to clients this week that as investors adjust their shares, and in some cases, the four have become "crowded shorts" and in some cases, they have begun to bet on their stocks actively. "Anyone has been hurt (the Big Seven)" said JPMorgan's Kelly.
Trump himself repeatedly refuted negative reactions to some of his tariff announcements and may have rated his first 100 days as “based on whether he did what he said, rather than whether the result was good or bad so far,” said Thierry Wizman, a global diplomatic exchange rate and Macquarie strategist.