President Donald Trump‘s “Liberation Day”, the term he’s used for April 2nd, the day of incoming reciprocal tariffs, preceded a drop in stock prices.
S&P 500 declined by 4.59% for the first quarter of 2025, whereas the Nasdaq 100 was down over 10%.
With the 10-year Treasury yield at 4.18% and the two-year at 3.87%, the CME Group's FedWatch tool shows markets pricing in an 86.8% likelihood of the Federal Reserve maintaining current interest rates through its May meeting.
Futures
Change (+/-)
Nasdaq 100
0.03%
S&P 500
-0.11%
Dow Jones
-0.21%
Russell 2000
-0.15%
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, were mixed in premarket on Tuesday. The SPY was down 0.17% to $558.43, while the QQQ advanced 0.071% to $469.00, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Cues From Last Session:
Consumer staples, financials, and utilities led the S&P 500 gains on Monday, while consumer discretionary stocks declined.
Overall, U.S. stocks were mixed; the Dow rose over 400 points amidst Trump’s tariff concerns, but the Nasdaq fell due to drops in Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA).
March saw significant declines for major indices, with the S&P 500 down 5.8%, the Nasdaq 8.2%, and the Dow 4.2%. Quarterly, the Nasdaq fell 10.4%, and the Dow lost 1.3%.
Economic data showed a rise in the Chicago PMI but a decline in the Dallas Fed’s manufacturing index.
Index
Performance (+/-)
Value
Nasdaq Composite
-0.14%
17,299.29
S&P 500
0.55%
5,611.85
Dow Jones
1.00%
42,001.76
Russell 2000
-0.56%
2,011.91
Insights From Analysts:
After the S&P 500 index declined 4.59% in the first quarter, marking its largest quarterly underperformance against global markets in 37 years, Ryan Detrick, the chief market strategist at Carson Research, cited historical data in his latest X post and stated that “April does better after a weak Q1.”
The average return in April stood at 3.1% after a poor first quarter, however, the average return for the full year after a bad first quarter stood at just 6.6%.
