US stocks cratered on Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) plunging more than 2,200 points after China stoked trade-war fears and Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned of higher inflation and slower growth stemming from tariffs.

The Dow pulled back 5.5% to enter into correction territory. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (GSPC) sank nearly 6%, as the broad-based benchmark capped its worst week since 2020. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) dropped 5.8% to close in bear market territory.

The major averages added to Thursday's $2.5 trillion wipeout after China said it will impose additional tariffs of 34% on all US products from April 10 — matching the extra 34% duties imposed by Trump on Wednesday.

That ramped up investor worries that countries are more likely to retaliate than negotiate, leading to a protracted global trade war.

Investors flocked to government bonds as the 10-year Treasury (TNX) yield fell to 3.9%, nearing its lowest levels since October.

Economists are warning that with tariffs as-is, the risk of a US recession is rising. The monthly jobs report, unusually overshadowed Friday, showed a labor market that held steady ahead of Trump's biggest tariffs. The US added 228,000 jobs in March, beating estimates, though the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chair Powell for the first time addressed the reality of the tariffs, saying they were "higher than anticipated." He said it is "too soon to say" what the proper rate path should be. Traders have ramped up bets on interest rate cuts this year to five, as the Fed is expected to set its efforts to cool inflation aside to tackle the bigger risk of economic slowdown.

Trump, posting on Truth Social on Friday, added to fears by saying that his policies "will never change" and warning that China "played it wrong."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-plunges-2200-points-nasdaq-enters-bear-market-as-trump-tariffs-spark-worst-meltdown-since-2020-200042876.html

I am specifically referring to the Vietnamese decision to seek negotiations and request a postponement of tariffs in response to U.S. trade actions.

Using the idiom “blinked first” might make for punchy headlines, but it carries a subtle connotation of weakness or capitulation. It implies a power dynamic where one side lost nerve or caved under pressure. While not overtly insulting, it does paint the act of negotiation as a kind of defeat rather than a diplomatic maneuver. For other world leaders, that framing can be problematic:

• Deterrent Effect: Leaders may become more reluctant to appear conciliatory if doing so will be publicly framed as “blinking.” Saving face is a major factor in international relations, especially in cultures where honor or strength in negotiation is paramount.

• Tougher Postures: Some may double down on hardline stances, not necessarily because it’s best for their economy, but to avoid being seen as the weaker party—especially if domestic audiences are watching closely.

• Private Over Public Diplomacy: To avoid that kind of characterization, leaders might prefer more behind-the-scenes negotiation rather than public requests for tariff relief or concessions.

So yes, while it may just be an idiom, its impact can ripple. It signals that showing flexibility could be equated with weakness in the global media narrative—and that’s rarely helpful when diplomacy requires exactly that: flexibility.

Here’s the key: a trade deficit only tracks the flow of goods and services, not who owns the goods, who profits from them, or where the capital ultimately goes.

If American companies outsource manufacturing abroad (say, to Vietnam or China), then import those goods into the U.S. to sell domestically or re-export elsewhere, the U.S. shows a trade deficit because it's importing more than it exports.

But:

The ownership of the goods, the intellectual property, and the profits stay with the American company.

The value-added activities like design, marketing, finance, and management (which are higher-margin) often remain in the U.S.

The foreign country gets paid for labor and materials — typically a much smaller slice.

So while the trade statistics make it look like America is "losing," the profits and value accumulation — the real wealth — can still be flowing into American hands.

This is actually a big part of the so-called "smile curve" theory in globalization:

The manufacturing (middle of the curve) is lower-value.

The R&D, design, branding (left side) and marketing, sales (right side) are high-value, and mostly happen in richer countries like the U.S.

Example: Apple has a huge trade deficit with China because iPhones are assembled there. But Apple captures about 40–50% of the iPhone's final sale price as profit. China might get 3–5% for the assembly.

I've witnessed all the major crashes sincec '89 and too many mini meltdowns to count...and I have never witnessed such uniform, orderly meltdown like this. All the major markets around the world are down almost exactly 9%. I didn't hear about any panic so bad as to require trading halts. What gives?

What do you think about Visa stock? For some time I have considered that company as a business that I would like to own, but I am not sufficiently familiar with the valuation of that share, so I am interested in the opinion of those who follow the stock better, ie. what could be a good entry point, fair value etc... if the market continues to fall. I also read that the European Union wants its own version of Visa and Mastercard. How threatened is that duopoly?

EDIT: I’m not an investor, just asking a question.

Trump controls the SEC and DOJ, so who’s going to investigate or stop him?

Is it possible that Trump, his family, and billionaire buddies are benefiting from Trump’s tariffs?

Trump could be letting them know the date and time that he’s going to make the announcement to impose tariffs. Like many investors, they pull their investments but, they have a head start due to their insider knowledge.

Then he lets those on the inside know that he’s going to rescind tariffs and the date and time which he will be announcing that.

They buy the dip and profit as the market rebounds.

Rinse and repeat.

Anybody any idea why defensive sectors like utilities and staples sold off on Friday? On Thursday with the first day of sell-off those were the only 2 sectors that stayed in the green, which is logic as they are considered to be the safest and best performing during a recession, however on Friday especially the utilities sector went deep in the red. What's the reason for this?

It has been well documented that passive investing tends to outperform active investing (some people believe this has caused a bubble itself such as Michael Burry). It’s also known that most day traders lose money over time. Im not really talking about day trading specifically here but what separates the very few people who seem to be able to out perform the market by either changing their portfolio every few weeks / months / years or even successful day traders from everyone else who either underperforms or loses money ? Surely intelligence cannot be the only thing, do you guys think they just spend more time researching? More resources ? Some sort of inside fix? Or do you think the only difference between someone who successfully actively manages a portfolio or successfully day trades is just pure luck ?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/nasdaq-set-confirm-bear-market-trump-tariffs-trigger-recession-fears-2025-04-04/

“The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index was set to confirm it was in a bear market on Friday, down more than 20% from a recent record high, as investors fled riskier assets on fears that tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump could spark a trade war and tip the global economy into recession.

Trump on Wednesday slapped a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the United States along with heavy levies on tech production hubs such as China, Taiwan and Vietnam, deepening a selloff triggered by concerns about AI spending that had pushed Nasdaq into correction territory earlier last month.

The index (.IXIC) was last down 3.8% on Friday, after China announced additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods in the most serious escalation. The Nasdaq Composite index is down about 20% from its December 16 record closing high of 20,173.89. A bear market is confirmed when an index closes down at least 20% from its most recent record high finish, according to a widely used definition.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tariff-live-updates-stocks-extend-global-selloff-investors-fear-us-2025-04-04/

“China will impose additional tariffs of 34% on all US goods. China's finance ministry said it will impose the additional tariffs on U.S. goods from April 10. The rate will be on top of the current applicable tariff rate, it said.

China's commerce ministry announced restrictions on some rare earths-related items

The commerce ministry also added 16 U.S. entities to its export control list.”

So much data and evidence is becoming clear that trump wants to crash the market..Bessent talks about the ten year constantly..they don’t even harass the fed anymore (well trump did the other day)

..Bessent know they can force the feds hand if they crash the markets..cutting govt spending ect..everything they are doing is to pave way for a tax break AND unlocking lower interest rates. I belive the idea is to stimulate without printing money.

Rocket mortgage..the only company going on offensive rn..acquiring Redfin and Mr cooper..they now will be originating/servicing/refinancing when available.

But inflation will lock up the fed!?

No..Powell said last meeting that if inflation is high and unemployment rises, he will prioritize cutting to aid the jobs numbers..

The theory works. Trump reposted these ideas of crashing markets to truth social.

For stock reference..when the ten year went to 3.3 rocket was at $20..if the fed is late. It will go much lower than that.

It is no surprise to anyone here that the world economy is in a rough spot right now. The S&P500 and MSCI world are down 10%, trade wars are developing and fears of a recession are extremely high. It feels like this will finally be the end of the US dollar/the stock market. But is that really the case?

The grand majority of investors invest in an ETF for a reason. As long as the economy grows, your wealth will grow with it. As long as you keep investing and putting money into it, your wealth will grow over time. Many people seem to either have forgotten this premise, or to actually be thinking the economy is doomed forever.

My 2 cents are: it isn't. No matter how bad the economy is doing, companies aren't going anywhere. Economic growth isn't going anywhere. Keep buying, keep holding, and in 5/15/25 years this will all be long behind us.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/04/04/nintendo-delaying-switch-2-us-pre-orders-due-to-tariffs-market-drop/

“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” Nintendo said in a statement provided to Polygon. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged."

Title kinda says it all, what are some good tools for retail traders? Whether it be actual physical tools to help you trade or virtual tools that will really help. Any information is greatly appreciated!

I'm relatively new to the stock market (about 3 to 5 years of experience) and I'm finding myself in a bit of a tough spot with this current market downturn. I've been watching the free fall, and I'm struggling to figure out how long it might last.

I understand market cycles can be unpredictable, but I'm hoping to get some perspective from more experienced traders. Are there any indicators or patterns that you look for when determining how long these kinds of downturns last?

Are you just doing DCA ?

I've seen a lot of discussion here about why Trump is doing these tariffs. For example, I've seen:

1. He is doing this to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.A.
   
2. He is doing this to "punish" countries for their tariffs and trade imbalances on and with the U.S.A.
   
3. He doesn't know what he's doing, and is dumb and/or short-sighted.
   

While I see where the logic for these explanations is coming from, I think there is a very real chance that the true explanation is that Trump's tariffs are a political weapon, designed to give him leverage over nearly every country, industry, and company. By instituting tariffs, rather than just threatening them, now the clock is ticking: countries, industries, and companies are frantically trying to figure out what to do.

Think about it: first, Trump went after universities, threatening to withhold funding unless they caved to his demands about diversity and pro-Palestinian protestors. This has already forced major institutions, like Columbia, to bend the knee to him.

Then, Trump went after big law firms and their clients, threatening through Executive Orders to cut off their access and intimidate them. This has already resulted in major law firms (Paul Weiss and Skadden) to forge "settlements" to do free pro bono work to the President's bidding, though luckily some of these firms (Perkins Coie) have had the integrity to fight back and sue.

Following this logic, it follows that Trump with his tariffs doesn't legitimately believe what he is telling the public about his intentions. Far more likely, I think, that he is using these tariffs to force pledges of loyalty, concessions, and "deals" with countries, industries, and companies.

This is not my original idea, to be fair; I heard it from U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D - Connecticut). He has pointed out that democratically-elected leaders turned despot/authoritarian/fascist will use tools like this to maintain power. Trump knows he cannot be reelected due to term limits, so how does he hold on to power? Like this. It is a slippery slope towards becoming a dictator.

I can only hope that some countries/industries/companies see through this B.S. and fight back, but it is likely that many—now that their finances are being hurt—will bend the knee.

Going back to the common explanations for Trump's tariffs, here are my counterarguments:

1. If this was intended to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.A., that doesn't make a lot of sense. Companies aren't just going to upend decades of supply chains to invest billions into a country whose people don't want a lot of dirty, hard-work manufacturing jobs, especially when everything could (likely) revert back when Trump is out of office in 4 years.
   
2. I won't pretend to be an economist, but a big reason for the trade imbalances is because Americans like buying stuff from XYZ countries. That isn't those countries' fault, necessarily. And moreover, the chart Trump showed at the White House Rose Garden this week did not accurately reflect the actual tariff rates that foreign countries place on the U.S.A—it included trade imbalances, which makes zero sense and is highly misleading, if not an outright lie.
   
3. Trump may appear dumb, but he has scores of well-planned sycophants from groups like the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025 authors) that are advising him. It is highly unlikely that they planned so much of his presidency, but the tariffs themselves were an afterthought.
   

Now granted, we have heard rumors that the tariffs were hastily put together, and that Trump's team may have used ChatGPT to write some of the policy out. At first, this appears to support explanation no. 3. However, I think the hasty nature of these tariff policies actually supports the idea that they are purely intended as political weapons: it doesn't matter what exactly the tariffs are, what matters is creating immediate leverage.

Curious for the community's thoughts.

Disclosure: I have divested heavily from the U.S. markets and gone into EU stocks, especially defense. I am also short TSLA, DJT, and Air Canada.

EDIT: As seeming proof of this theory, American journalist Kara Swisher reported on BlueSky today that "Several sources tell me a passel of high profile tech and also finance leaders is making a trip to Mar-a-Lago to read Trump the riot act — um talk common sense — to him on the tariffs. Their million dollar donations to the inauguration is turning into billions in losses."

Translation, I think: executives are bending over backwards to try and get concessions from Trump. This shows he has leverage over them already.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-files-complaint-wto-over-124325157.html

GENEVA (Reuters) - China said it had opened a formal complaint against the new U.S. tariffs with the World Trade Organization on Friday, saying the measures violate WTO rules and requesting consultations.

Earlier, China announced retaliatory additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods, the most serious escalation in a trade war with President Donald Trump that has fed fears of a recession and touched off a global stock market rout.

"China has filed the WTO complaint with respect to the United States' measures," the Permanent Mission of China to the World Trade Organization said in a statement.

The new tariffs blatantly violate WTO rules, it added.

In the standoff between the world's top two economies, Beijing also announced controls on exports of some rare earths which it dominates, potentially cutting the U.S. off from critical minerals vital to everything from smartphones to electric car batteries and defence.

Trump on Wednesday announced China would be hit with a 34% tariff, on top of the 20% he previously imposed earlier this year, bringing the total new levies to 54% and close to the 60% figure he had threatened while on the campaign trail.

Chinese exporters, like those from other economies around the world, will face a 10% baseline tariff, as part of the new 34% levy, on almost all goods shipped to the world's largest consumer economy from Saturday before the remaining, higher "reciprocal tariffs" take effect from April 9.

China on Thursday urged the United States to immediately cancel its latest tariffs.

The WTO Secretariat confirmed to Reuters on Friday that it had received the request for consultations from China.

Bilateral consultations are the first stage of formal dispute settlement. If no solution is found within 60 days, China could request adjudication by the Geneva-based organisation's Dispute Settlement Body.

I get that most people are doom and gloom right now, and everyone is predicting the market is going to drop further. That's totally fair, and is probably true, but I would love to get people's take on companies they've been eyeing that they would recommend/consider at current prices. Thank you!

Here are a couple I was looking at w current valuations:

• UBER
• SNAP
• HIMS
• FSLY
• GOOGL
• BLK

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/retail-traders-keep-plowing-into-us-stocks-but-pace-is-slowing

The first signs of capitulation among normally bullish retail traders are showing up in data at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Fidelity Investments.

JPMorgan reported retail orders amount to net selling of $1.5 billion as of noon Friday, the most in the first 2.5 hours of trading in its history. That came a day after the firm’s figures showed individuals were net buyers of $4.7 billion of shares, the biggest day over the past decade.

At Fidelity’s brokerage unit, individual investors were still buying their favorite stocks and exchange-traded funds Friday, but the level of purchasing relative to sale orders showed a slowdown from the prior day.

Retail investors have for years been reliable buyers of any meaningful pullback in American equities. The bet this week was that the market rout triggered by President Donald Trump’s trade war would present a buying opportunity in the long run.

Was that foolish of me? If the public knew about "Liberation Day" then wouldn't the stock market respond accordingly before then? And not wait to tumble when the tariffs were announced? I've heard that the tariffs were announced at 10% but ultimately they were much higher than that. Is that why the markets went down?

Also, was I naive AGAIN for thinking we may have bottomed out YESTERDAY and then still free-falling today?

Just trying to cope here. Unfortunately it's too late to sell at this point 😒

There was the Dot Com Bubble, Great Recession, Covid Recession, Great Depression of course. Are there any names that stick with today’s love of naming things?

I think Reddit should be tasked with naming this bear market before the media gets its hands on it.

Try to take into all factors! Get creative!

They normally say "don't time the market", but these are abnormal times.

With the current instability of the market and Trump policies, is it better to withold 401k contributions until later or keep on doing my normal contributions (and DCA the current market)? Either way, I plan on having my contributions maxed out by the end of the year anyways.

I went through a list of stocks this morning and almost everything was red but most of the green stocks represented some sort of clothing apparel company. Why? Examples include Nike (which is down about 26% in the past month), Abercrombie and Fitch, Under Armour, Guess, Footlocker, American Apparel, Lululemon, Sketchers, Adidas etc. Considering their reliance on Asian countries, I’m trying to understand why the market responded this way on 4/4/25

Any recommendations on what I should do? I am afraid of a potential recession and want to make sure I am good to go if I have trouble and get laid off/have trouble finding a new job. I'm a recent graduate, so I am really worried.

Thank you so much!

I'm currently up 13% on my shares of VOO (S&P ETF). I was up 30% just a short while ago so my gains have basically been cut in half overnight by these tariffs. But I'm still in the green right now, and I think there's a very high chance that if I do nothing, the price will keep going lower and lower since we are in uncharted territory and there's no sign that things are going to get better anytime soon. Would it be a smart move to just sell all my VOO shares right now, take profit while I can, and then reinvest the money later on? I also own shares in a few individual stocks, but I'm already in the red on those so it's too late to sell those. I still have a chance with VOO since I'm up by 13% at the moment.