State Of The Stock Market - April 2025

Published first at https://www.3minutebreakdowns.com US stock markets plunged today after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on nearly all of its trading partners. The Dow Jones Index gave up 1600 points, the S&P 500 dropped five percent and the Nasdaq 100 fell 6 percent. WTI Crude oil fell below 67 dollars a barrel and the US 10 year yield tumbled to 4%. Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs include an additional 34% charge on China, 20% on the European Union, 46% on Vietnam, 26% on India and a whole host of other nations. If enacted, the average tariff level imposed by the USA would rise to a level not seen since the 1800s and the 1930s, an era which preceded the Great Depression. Trump’s tariffs appear to have been devised using a flawed economic formula. Instead of taking the average tariff rate from each country, the Trump team has taken each country’s trade surplus with the United States and divided it by the value of its imports. This leads to a misleading figure which fails to account for economic services and the wealth of each country.