Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the opening bell in New York City on April 3, 2025.
Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images
The stock market was pounded for a second day Friday after China retaliated with new tariffs on U.S. goods, sparking fears President Donald Trump has ignited a global trade war that will lead to a recession.
Here’s a tally of the stock market damage:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2,231.07 points, or 5.5%, to 38,314.86 on Friday, the biggest decline since June 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. This follows a 1,679-point decline on Thursday and marks the first time ever that it has shed more than 1,500 points on back-to-back days.
- The S&P 500 nosedived 5.97% to 5,074.08, the biggest decline since March 2020. The benchmark shed 4.84% on Thursday and is now off more than 17% off its recent high.
- The Nasdaq Composite, home to many tech companies that sell to China and manufacture there as well, dropped 5.8%, to 15,587.79. This follows a nearly 6% drop on Thursday and takes the index down by 22% from its December record, a bear market in Wall Street terminology.
- The selling was broad with only 14 members of the S&P 500 higher on the day. Major market indexes closed at their lows of the session.
China’s commerce ministry said Friday the country will impose a 34% levy on all U.S. products, disappointing investors who had hoped countries would negotiate with Trump before retaliating.
Technology stocks led the bleeding Friday. Shares of iPhone maker Apple slumped 7%, bringing its loss for the week to 13%. Artificial intelligence bellwether Nvidia pulled back 7% during the session, while Tesla fell 10%. All three companies have large exposure to China and are among the hardest hit from Beijing’s retaliatory duties.
Outside of tech, Boeing and Caterpillar — big exporters to China — led the Dow lower, falling 9% and nearly 6%, respectively.
Dow this week
“The bull market is dead, and it was destroyed by ideologues and self-inflicted wounds,” said Emily Bowersock Hill, CEO and founding partner at Bowersock Capital Partners. “While the market may be close to the bottom in the short-term, we are concerned about the impact of a global trade-war on long-term economic growth.”
China’s efforts to respond to Trump’s tariffs extended beyond reciprocal duties of their own. Beijing added several companies to its so-called “unreliable entities list,” which asserts that the firms have broken market rules or contractual commitments. In addition, China opened an antitrust investigation into DuPont on Friday, sinking shares nearly 13%.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell back below 4% Friday as investors flooded into bonds for safety, pushing prices up and rates lower. The CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street’s fear gauge surged above 40, an extreme level seen only during rapid market declines.
Trump appeared to be steadfast in the face of the markets backlash to his tariff blitz announced Wednesday evening, posting on Truth Social Friday that his “policies will never change.”
“The fear now as we go into the weekend [is] the trade war escalates, and the US doesn’t back down,” said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.
All told, the S&P 500 dropped 9% on the week, its worst week since the breakout of Covid in early 2020.
