Wall Street reels as Trump’s tariffs plan sinks markets, but he’s ‘not listening to anyone or anything’
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Rob Citrone couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The 60-year-old hedge-fund manager watched from his Orlando, Fla., home as President Trump walked into the White House’s Rose Garden and announced his sweeping plan to impose tariffs on the rest of the world.
Citrone knew more levies on imported goods were coming—the White House had stuck to this message for months—and so he’d placed a series of wagers against U.S., European and Chinese stocks, betting they would drop as investors fretted over the consequences for consumers and companies.
But for the first part of Trump’s Wednesday speech, the market moved higher. This rally is crazy, Citrone thought, and added to his bets that stocks would fall.
Then the president unveiled a plan that went further and wider than most investors thought possible. Trump had just taken on the globe in a trade war. A market rout was on.
“I should have sold more,” Citrone said.
Across Wall Street, money managers, brokers and bankers were reeling from what many described as an unprecedented shock, and fearing it marked an end to the market’s post-Covid rally. They might have lived through much bigger market swings, but this one—induced by a U.S. president bent on establishing a new paradigm for global trade, at the expense of rivals and allies alike—felt incomparable because it was the result of deliberate policy.
By midday Thursday, major stock indexes were on track for their worst day in more than two years, and the U.S. dollar slipped to its lowest level of 2025, a sign of unease. Investors dashed for the safety of Treasurys, while gold—normally another haven—fell.
“We’re in a macro world that I’ve never seen now,” said Stephen Solaka, managing partner at Belmont Capital Group. “We’ve been used to sort of the, ‘buy the dip, things kind of work out,’ scenario.”
Solaka said he’s heard from a lot of clients and senses a level of anxiety they haven’t felt in years, maybe ever. It is likely they grew accustomed to the market always roaring back from every selloff, he said. This time, they aren’t interested in looking to add tech stocks on discount. “We’ve seen a lot of clients look to derisk,” Solaka said.
Within around an hour on Wednesday evening, traders hiked the probability of a recession this year to 48%, up from 38%, according to Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market.
Even before Trump’s speech had ended, Wall Street’s investors and intermediaries had swung into action. But they grasped for the right words to describe what might come next, or what to do with their money. Some of their notes and commentaries referenced the tariff policies of the 1930s, rarely a welcomed historical comparison for either the markets or the economy. [Continue reading…]
For anyone watching their 401(k) shrink, it’s tempting to hope that Trump will dial back his tariffs to avert a market meltdown. During his first term, Trump closely monitored the markets and changed course when his erratic policies triggered widespread sell-offs. “More than a dozen people close to Mr. Trump say he sees the market as a barometer of his success,” The New York Times reported several weeks before Trump was sworn in for his new term. But if Trump 2.0 has proved anything, it’s that he is no longer constrained by such external guardrails.
“He’s not listening to anyone or anything,” a Trump ally who speaks regularly with the president told me this week. During a recent NBC News interview, Trump declared he “couldn’t care less” if people had to pay more for imported cars. [Continue reading…]
President Donald Trump’s response to a tanking U.S. stock market—brought on by his sweeping tariff announcement Wednesday—is to fly to Florida.
The president is scheduled to jet to Miami on Thursday afternoon to attend a LIV Golf tournament at his golf course in nearby Doral. He is scheduled to hang there for two-and-a-half hours before attending a “LIV Dinner,” his schedule says. [Continue reading…]
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The purpose of these tariffs is to be able to lift them to those who bow down to him and sacrifice their dignity. That is what he did to the GOP, the billionaires, and is doing now to Big Law. Those who stand up will be punished, those who bend a knee and humiliate themselves will be rewarded.
— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 5:54 PM