President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out $4 trillion from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump’s agenda.
A barrage of new Trump policies has increased uncertainty for businesses, consumers and investors, notably back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners like Canada, Mexico and China.
The stock market selloff deepened on Monday. The benchmark S&P 500 fell 2.7%, its biggest daily drop of the year. The Nasdaq Composite slid 4%, its largest one-day decline since September 2022.
The S&P 500 on Monday closed down 8.6% from its February 19 record high, shedding over $4 trillion in market value since then and nearing a 10% decline that would represent a correction for the index. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended Thursday down more than 10% from its December high.
Trump over the weekend declined to predict whether the U.S. could face a recession as investors worried about the impact of his trade policy.
Delta Air Lines on Monday slashed its first-quarter profit estimates by half, sending its shares down 14% in aftermarket action. CEO Ed Bastian blamed heightened U.S. economic uncertainty.
Investors are also watching whether lawmakers can pass a funding bill to avert a partial federal government shutdown. A U.S. report on inflation looms on Wednesday.
The percentage of total corporate equities and mutual fund shares that are owned by the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, ranked by wealth, stands at about 1%, while the same measure for the top 10% of the population by wealth stood at 87%, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data as of July 2024.
The S&P 500 tallied back-to-back gains of over 20% in 2023 and 2024, led by megacap technology and tech-related stocks such as Nvidia and Tesla that have struggled so far in 2025, dragging major indexes.
On Monday, the S&P 500’s technology sector dropped 4.3%, while Apple and Nvidia both fell about 5%. Tesla tumbled 15%, shedding about $125 billion in value.
Other risk assets were also punished, with bitcoin dropping 5%.
Some defensive areas of the market held up better, with the utilities sector logging a 1% daily gain. Safe-haven U.S. government debt saw more demand, with benchmark 10-year Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, down to about 4.22%.
Community Manager.