Stocks nosedived across the board Thursday as Wall Street largely panned the highly aggressive tariffs announced by President Donald Trump, sending major indexes toward their worst daily losses in years, and several prominent names were hit particularly hard by the latest tariff developments.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the start of President Donald Trump’s … More news conference on tariffs Wednesday.
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Key Facts
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 4%, or 1,680 points, the bellwether S&P 500 sank 4.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq cratered 6% at close.
That makes Thursday the biggest point loss for the Dow since June 2020 and the steepest daily percentage losses for the S&P and Nasdaq since June and March 2020, respectively, during the short-lived COVID-19 pandemic stock market crash.
Excluding 2020, this is the worst day for the S&P since 2011.
After opening at 9:30 a.m. down 3.1%, things only got worst for the S&P and the broader market as Trump doubled down on his tariffs, showing little room for leeway that more optimistic traders may have hoped for.
And Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), spiked by more than 35% to its highest level since August, tallying one of its 10 biggest single-day increases of the last decade.
Trump Appears Nonplussed By Historic Selloff
“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,” Trump told reporters Thursday afternoon, saying the reaction to his policies is “going very well.”
Stocks Hit Worst By Trump’s Tariffs
Among the hardest hit stocks were the “magnificent seven” big tech companies: Shares of Apple fell 9%, Alphabet 4%, Amazon 9%, Meta 9%, Microsoft 2%, Nvidia 8% and Tesla 5%. Also struggling were retail stocks, as shares of Best Buy, Target and Dollar Tree lost 11% or more, while shares of athletic wear companies Lululemon and Nike each tanked more than 10% due to each firm’s manufacturing reliance on China and Vietnam, countries heavily targeted by the latest tariffs. Shares of financial services companies from American Express (-11%) to Bank of America (-10%) to Robinhood (-10%) also flailed. These are the 10 stocks listed on the S&P which fell the most on a percentage basis Thursday, according to FactSet:
- Dell Technologies (-19%)
- Western Digital (-18%)
- Best Buy (-18%)
- Zebra Technologies (-17%)
- Microchip Technology (-17%)
- Norwegian Cruise Line (-17%)
- APA Corporation (-16%)
- Ralph Lauren (-16%)
- Williams-Sonoma (-16%)
- Seagate (-16%)
Why Is Apple Stock Down So Much?
Shares of Apple lost more than any other of the magnificent seven, pacing toward their worst loss since March 2020 and seventh-worst day of the last two decades. The Asia-focused “Liberation Day” tariffs “could blow up Apple” due to its heavy non-U.S. manufacturing mix, explained Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett in a Thursday note. Apple alone would face $39.5 billion in tariff costs, according to Crockett, equating to a whopping 32% earnings hit. “It’s hard for us to imagine Trump blowing up an American icon,” wrote Crockett, speculating a carveout may be in order for Apple, before bemoaning “this looks pretty tough” for the iPhone maker.
Big Number
$1.03 trillion. That’s about how much market value the magnificent seven lost Thursday, led by Apple’s $311 billion loss.
Crucial Quote
Trump’s “tariff announcement was more impactful than expected and viewed by many as the worst-case scenario,” Mark Hackett, Nationwide’s chief market strategist, wrote in emailed comments.
Warren Buffett And Berkshire Hathaway Emerge Relatively Unscathed
Shares of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate helmed by legendary investor Warren Buffett, declined by less than 1.4% on Thursday, the best performance of any of the dozen American companies valued at $500 billion or above. Berkshire holds a record cash pile of $335 billion, and the centibillionaire Buffett warned last month: “Tariffs are actually — we’ve had a lot of experience with them — they’re an act of war, to some degree.”
What Wall Street Strategists Say About Tariffs
The odds of a bear market, in which stocks decline by 20% or more, is “going higher,” warned UBS strategists led by Bhanu Baweja in a Thursday note to clients, setting a 5,300 target for the S&P, which implies a further decline of nearly 2%. “There is no tariff playbook,” bluntly stated Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s top U.S. equity strategist.
Contra
U.S. government bonds rallied as investors fled to assets perceived as safer in times of economic uncertainty, and yields for the benchmark 10-year Treasury declined by more than 15 basis points to just below 4%, the lowest level since before the election (lower bond yields signify more valuable bonds).
Further Reading
ForbesHere’s The Full List Of Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs Announced WednesdayBy Molly Bohannon ForbesTrump’s Tariffs Tip Economy ‘Perilously Close’ To A Recession, Largest U.S. Bank WarnsBy Derek Saul
