Summary
U.S. stocks suffered a historic collapse as Trump’s sweeping tariffs triggered panic over inflation and recession. The Dow fell 2,231 points, the S&P 500 dropped 6%, and the Nasdaq entered a bear market.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned the 10% import tariffs and retaliatory moves from China, including a 34% tariff on U.S. goods, will hurt growth and raise prices.
Economists cut U.S. growth forecasts below 1%, projecting households could face $1,900 in added costs.
The sell-off erased $2.7 trillion in value and marked the worst two-day market drop since March 2020.
The 8 largest Dow Jones drops in American history:
Trump, 3/16/20 −2,997
Trump, 3/12/20 −2,352
Trump, 4/4/25 −2,231
Trump, 3/9/20 −2,013
Trump, 6/11/20 −1,861
Trump, 4/3/25 −1,679
Trump, 3/11/20 −1,464
Trump, 3/18/20 −1,338
I feel like using percentages would be more meaningful. The Dow Jones peaked at 381 just before crashing in 1929. So using absolute numbers can’t be compared because the entire DJ wasn’t worth the drops we are seeing today.
I in 1929 it lost~10-12% on its worst days
So far Trump is losing ~5% approx each day
It’s not exactly a stellar endorsement. I’m only saying that you are comparing things at today’s dollar value, when the value of currency changes over time.
This Wikipedia page shows that the worst days by percentage are not where we are yet.
However… Rank, President (AFFILIATION), date, DJ, Point loss, %loss
1 Reagan ®, 1987-10-19, 1738.74, −508.00, −22.61%
2 Trump ®, 2020-03-16, 20188.52, −2997.10, −12.93%
3 Hoover ®, 1929-10-28, 260.64, −38.33, −12.82%
4 Hoover ®, 1929-10-29, 230.07, −30.57, −11.73%
5 Trump ®, 2020-03-12, 21200.62, −2352.60, −9.99%
6 Hoover ®, 1929-11-06, 232.13, −25.55, −9.92%
7 McKinley ®, 1899-12-18, 58.27, −5.57, −8.72%
8 Hoover ®, 1932-08-12, 63.11, −5.79, −8.40%
9 T. Roosevelt ®, 1907-03-14, 76.23, −6.89, −8.29%
10 Reagan ®, 1987-10-26, 1793.93, −156.83 , −8.04 %
All republicans. I note that the biggest daily gains were also republicans but most of them are related to the big drops e.g a day, week or month later, so they basically tank the index then the index recovers some time later.