S&P 500: Roller Coaster Due to Trump's Tariffs

The US stock market has been on a roller coaster since Donald Trump took office as president, suffering from incredible volatility due to the tariffs announced on US imports, which were later suspended.

A visualcapitalist.com analysis shows how the US market reacted to Trump's various tariff announcements and changes, namely the evolution of the S&P 500 index from October 2024 to April 9, 2025, based on TradingView data.

• Correction for US stocks

While the stock market and the business world had a positive dynamic after Trump's electoral victory, anticipating a business-friendly regime, less than three months after the US president's inauguration, stocks entered correction territory (-10%).

The announcements of tariffs, their imposition, and then their temporary suspension led to a market decline of 21% from the peak recorded on February 19, briefly reaching bear territory in intraday trading on April 7, according to the cited source.

The analysis recalls that on November 5, 2024, when Trump won the US presidential election, the S&P 500 reached 5,783 points, and on February 19, 2025 it rose to a historical maximum of 6,144 points (the analysis presents the closing values of the stock market sessions). On March 4, 2025, when 25% customs tariffs on Canada and Mexico came into effect, the index reached 5,778 points, down 6% from the maximum. On April 2, 2025, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs, at which point the S&P 500 fell 7.8% from its high to 5,670. Later, on April 7, the market hit an intraday low of 4,835 points (-21% from its all-time high), but ended the day at 5,062 points (-17.7% from its high). On April 9, 2025, when Trump announced a 90-day pause for countries that did not retaliate, the index fell to 5,457 points, down 11.2% from its high.

Although Trump's 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs on countries that did not retaliate resulted in a 9.5% daily gain in the S&P 500, volatility and uncertainty persisted.

• Volatility, Uncertainty, and Bond Market Fears

During the stock market's sharp decline, the S&P 500 volatility index hit a high of 60 points. By comparison, the index ranged between 12 and 22 points for most of 2024 and 2025, and its current high level indicates extreme anxiety among market participants.

As if that weren't enough, the U.S. bond market-usually a safe haven in times of uncertainty-has also been rocked by tariff-induced turbulence.

Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields rose sharply (rising yields indicate a decline in the bond's price), from a low of 3.86% on April 7 to 4.5%, an unexpected move given how bonds tend to move inversely when stocks fall.

Given that the Trump administration often says it doesn't watch the stock market and instead seeks to lower the yield on the ten-year bond, this move could be one reason why Trump suspended the reciprocal tariffs two days after announcing them.