Economic History Trump Term #2 Market Guide

Trump Term #2

Track SPY volatility during Trump Term #2 from January 2025 onward, including tariff shocks, Fed conflict, and trade-war headlines.

Section: Economics Period: 01/2025-Ongoing Published: 2026-03-07 Updated: 2026-03-07

Trump Term #2 (1/2025-Ongoing)

SPY Up Days
Apr 09, 2025: +9.52%	May 12, 2025: +3.26%	Apr 22, 2025: +2.51%	Mar 14, 2025: +2.13%
May 27, 2025: +2.05%	Apr 24, 2025: +2.03%	Apr 8, 2026: +2.51%	Mar 21, 2026: +2.91%

SPY Down Days
Apr 04, 2025: -5.97%	Apr 03, 2025: -4.84%	Apr 10, 2025: -3.46%	Oct 10, 2025: -2.71%
Mar 10, 2025: -2.70%	Apr 21, 2025: -2.36%	Apr 16, 2025: -2.24%	Jan 20, 2026: -2.06%

Summary

So far, Trump’s second term has been fairly similar to that of his first term. The first wave of volatility was exactly the same as it was before: tariff conflicts. The usual suspect, China, was of course here, but this new round of tariffs was more aggressive than the last, ranging from neighboring countries like Canada and Mexico, as well as allied nations in Europe. Now that Twitter had fallen out of favor, a good chunk of his market decisions ended up just being posted on Truth Social, his personal pet project. Trump’s spat with Powell and the FED also continued unabated in his second term. Most recently, the conflict in Iran and the art of the deal surrounding that conflict have taken center stage.

Key Data to Keep Track of:

Trump’s Truth Social
Executive Memorandums/Press Releases

2025

March: Mar 10th (-2.70%), Mar 14th (+2.13%)

Trump opened up his second tenure much the same way he had acted back in 2018 and 2019: tariffs. On 3/10, a day after he had refused to rule out the possibility that his policies could trigger a recession, markets dropped substantially. Following a suite of threats, impositions, and suspensions of tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China, Trump’s acknowledgment of his disinterest towards the economic fallout of such actions seems to be what triggered the first substantial drawback. Uncertainty over what his endgame was with the tariffs seems to have been a bigger concern rather than their existence in the first place. JP Morgan analysts claimed that these tariffs risked a global recession, placing the probability of such an event before the year’s end at 40%. This prediction did not pan out. On 3/14, market conditions were substantially oversold and there doesn’t seem to have been a particular reason for the day’s significant rise. That said, inflation data was encouraging, and bargains were to be had, though consumer sentiment was plummeting. Nvidia gained substantially ahead of the GTC conference, where its CEO, Jensen Huang, was expected to give a keynote address.

April: Apr 3rd (-4.84%), Apr 4th (-5.97%), Apr 9th (+9.52%), Apr 10th (-3.46%), Apr 16th (-2.24%) Apr 21st (-2.36%), Apr 22nd (+2.51%), Apr 24th (+2.03%)

4/3 opened with the worst day since 2020, thanks to what was called by Mary Bartels, CIO at Sanctuary Wealth, “the worst case scenario for tariffs,”. Trump announced a minimum tariff of 10% on imports, with substantially higher rates being placed on Chinese and EU member states goods. Trump had downplayed the economic effects of the tariffs that same day, saying: “I think it’s going very well,” he said. “We have an operation, like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is.” News that unemployment benefits applications had decreased and multiple U.S. sectors had grown were entirely crushed by the tariff news. Markets collapsed harder the following day, 4/4. China responded to Trump’s tariffs by introducing a 34% levy on American goods, signalling what most investors thought would be yet another prolonged trade war with China. The NASDAQ confirmed it was in a bear market, closing -20% from its record high. Oil and commodities prices collapsed as well. $5 trillion in market cap was wiped out in two days and even Jerome Powell warned that the future health of the economy was at risk due to the larger than expected tariffs.

The SPY posted its largest single day gain since 2008 on 4/9, following an immediate 90 day tariff pause for many countries, though he did add a cheeky levy on Chinese imports up to 125%. This news alone brought hope that America would avoid a guaranteed recession and international economic isolation, sending markets up parabolically. 4/10 took a chunk of these gains away, mostly due to residual anxiety around the question of what happens once the 90 days passes? Losses continued to grow after the White House confirmed that Chinese goods tariffs were actually 14.5%, totaling to 145%, which include a 20% levied in response to the fentanyl crisis. An extension to the 90 days was not ruled out by Trump, but things still remained uncertain. 4/16’s drop was caused by a warning issued by Nvidia as well as comments from Jerome Powell about the impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy. Nvidia dropped 6.9% after announcing it would post a $5.5 billion quarterly charge related to the export of H20 GPUs to China and other nations, following a U.S. government demand requiring a license to send chips from the U.S. to China. Pressure also mounted on Nvidia due to Trump’s crackdown on DeepSeek, one of Nvidia's clients. ASML also posted a disappointing earnings report, contributing to the chipmaker downturn. In addition to this, Powell commented that tariffs complicated keeping inflation low and employment up, rattling investors.

4/21 saw Trump keep markets down as a result of his continued spat with Powell. The post itself is rather long, but has been attached below. In summary, aside from calling Powell “Mr. Too Late, a major loser”, Trump insinuated that Powell had lowered rates in an attempt to help “Sleepy Joe Biden” and later Kamala get elected. Concerns that Trump could take moves to compromise the independence of the Federal Reserve seem to have caused much anxiety, as well as no material changes having taken place in regards to the ongoing trade conflict. 4/22 bought up the gains of the prior day, thanks to comments from the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who claimed there would be a deescalation in the trade war with China, acknowledging that the current state of the conflict was unsustainable. Markets dipped slightly from the day’s highs after Bessent insinuated that a trade deal may take two to three years to achieve. Despite the looming trade war, 4/24 rose after most of the Mag 7 (NVDA, META, TSLA, AMZN, & MSFT) closed higher. These gains seem odd, as China claimed that no trade talks were taking place with the U.S., in response to comments from Trump claiming he is willing to take a less confrontational approach to talks with Beijing. Perhaps markets responded to this claim, but the Chinese response was strange nonetheless. Scott Bessent reported that a trade deal with South Korea was potentially just a week away, which was at least some good news.

May: May 12th (+3.26%), May 27th (+2.05%),

The aforementioned confusing comments from China were made even more confusing on 5/12, as both countries agreed to temporarily slash tariffs following negotiations that took place in Switzerland. Bessent claimed that talks with China had been very productive and was planning to meet with Beijing representatives in the next few weeks to iron out a big agreement. Trump personally suggested that tariffs could be lowered to 60% if negotiations continued to go well. Deescalation was much preferred to the alternative, even if a true deal was still far away. Shares of companies that rely on Chinese goods, like Tesla and Apple, saw huge gains. 5/27 rallied thanks to Trump announcing a delay of the 50% tariffs he had announced on the EU, following a request from the European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, to do so. For reference, Trump had announced this tariff only a week before. In other news, this day also marked the end of Elon’s attempts at placing himself into American politics, announcing his shift away from politics back into his companies, sending Tesla up 7%.

October: Oct 10th (-2.71%)

After a lull in trade war theatrics, Trump snapped investors back to attention, by threatening to hike tariffs against China. On Truth Social, Trump commented that he was considering a massive increase on Chinese imports and “There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World “captive,” but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time”. One quote that seems to have aged particularly poorly from that same post: “The Chinese letters were especially inappropriate in that this was the Day that, after three thousand years of bedlam and fighting, there is PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.”. Peace in the middle east lasted not even half a year, it would seem.

2026

January: Jan 20th (-2.06%)

Conflict with China seems to have bored Trump by this point, as the new point of conflict was over Greenland. Trump had threatened eight different European countries with 10% import tariffs as tensions escalated over his attempted takeover of Greenland. What seems to have really shaked markets that day was the “sell America” movement, which saw many European and international investors abandon their American assets due to the unprecedented actions of a long time ally. Many American stocks were approaching or already at all time highs, so de-risking from these assets also seemed to be an alluring prospect.

March: Mar 31st (+2.91%)

Following a prolonged sell off after the start of the war in Iran, markets rose substantially after news emerged that the conflict may soon end. The move was triggered by unconfirmed reports from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claiming the nation was open to ending hostilities, alongside certain guarantees. Trump commented that he was willing to end conflicts even without reopening the Straits of Hormuz and believed that the war would end soon.

April: Apr 8th (+2.51%)

On the same day that Trump commented;“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” he announced a 14 day ceasefire (hours later), brokered in part by Pakistan, in an attempt to bring the conflict with Iran to an end. The ceasefire was, of course, conditional on Iran completely reopening the Straits of Hormuz to international trade. “I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran” Israel also agreed to the ceasefire. Concerns were still present in the article over whether or not the ceasefire would hold or lead to an actual agreement. For the time being, markets were exuberant that the conflict was potentially ending and things could return to normal.

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Trump Term #2

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