Personal Finance
Why the stock market hates tariffs and trade wars
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
The stock market has been throwing a temper tantrum, fueled by fear of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and the specter of an escalating global trade war.
Americans may wonder why trade policy has made stock investors so skittish.
At a high level, investors are nervous that a prolonged trade war poses significant risks for corporate profits and the U.S. economy, according to investment analysts.
That’s not a foregone conclusion, however. The Trump administration could strike trade deals and blunt the overall impact, for example, experts said.
“But if that doesn’t happen, the market may still be a long way from the bottom,” Thomas Mathews, head of Asia-Pacific markets at Capital Economics, wrote in a note on Monday.
The scope of the stock sell-off
The S&P 500 shed almost 11% in the two days of trading ended Friday.
It was the worst two-day stretch for the U.S. stock benchmark since March 12, 2020 — in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic — and the fourth worst since 1950, according to Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management.
Stocks briefly entered “bear market” territory — meaning they’d fallen 20% from their recent peak — during trading on Monday before paring some of those losses.
The sell-off came after Trump announced a sweeping plan Wednesday to put a 10% baseline tariff on U.S. trading partners. He set significantly higher rates for nations including China and traditional allies like European Union members.
Their scope caught many investors off guard.
The announcement “was more significant than most expected, so we had a material sell-off” in the stock market, Chris Harvey, head of equity strategy at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in an e-mail.
Wall Street fears a hit to growth
The stock market is a forward-looking barometer of investor sentiment — and tends to fall when investors sense collective danger.
The fear is that tariffs will dent growth for publicly listed companies and the broader U.S. economy. Wall Street has raised its odds for a U.S. recession.
Tariffs are a tax paid by U.S. companies that import goods from abroad, and they therefore raise costs for U.S. businesses. Companies may eat some of that cost to avoid raising prices for consumers, eroding profits.
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But economists expect businesses will pass at least some of the extra cost to consumers. The average household will lose $3,800 of purchasing power per year due to tariff policies announced so far, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
Consumers may pull back on spending, and lower sales would likely dent company profits. Companies may opt to lay off workers, further pressuring consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of the U.S. economy.
Retaliatory trade measures compound the problems, economists said.
China put a 34% tariff on U.S. products after Trump’s announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs last week, and vowed it would “fight to the end.” Canada put 25% tariffs on a range of U.S. goods, while the EU bloc is readying its own 25% retaliatory duties.
(The S&P 500 was up over 2% Tuesday morning on rising hopes for trade deals with China and South Korea.)
Retaliatory tariffs make U.S. goods sold abroad more expensive, hurting export-reliant businesses — perhaps leading to layoffs and lower consumer spending.
“We expect many — if not all — countries outside the U.S. to adopt retaliatory tariffs of their own,” the Wells Fargo Investment Institute wrote in a note Friday.
Wells Fargo expects “significantly lower” growth for the U.S. economy in 2025 due to “unexpectedly aggressive tariff increases.” It lowered its target for gross domestic product to 1% from 2.5% this year.
For now, the economy isn’t yet showing signs of dramatic weakening, said Joe Seydl, senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. If tariff policy proves to be long lasting rather than temporary, the shock would likely cause a “mild” U.S. recession, he said.
Tariffs may impact inflation — and interest rates
U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at the headquarters of the Federal Reserve on June 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Economists also expect tariffs to raise U.S. inflation this year, at a time when it hasn’t yet fallen back to earth from pandemic-era highs.
“While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.
The Fed may not cut interest rates as quickly as anticipated as a result.
The dynamic would likely keep borrowing costs higher for businesses, dampening growth prospects for those unable to invest in and expand their operations.
Market hates uncertainty, not tariffs
The current “tariff battle” is “very different” from tariffs in Trump’s first term, Seydl said.
One way: The scale.
The first Trump administration put tariffs on about $380 billion of imports, in 2018 and 2019, according to the Tax Foundation. Now, there are tariffs on more than $2.5 trillion of U.S. imports — or, about seven times more.
Another difference is the White House’s public stance toward tariffs and communication about it, analysts said.
During Trump’s first term, there was level of stock market volatility the administration didn’t find tolerable, Seydl said. Now, there appears to be less concern about stock gyrations — which is perhaps the most important factor in the stock sell-off, he said.
“The capital markets (especially equities) are sending a signal to the Administration that all is not well and the probability of recession, job losses, and a negative wealth effect are all increasing,” wrote Harvey of Wells Fargo.
“The Administration has been somewhat dismissive of these signals, creating a negative feedback loop,” Harvey wrote.
Uncertainty around the framework, goals, potential duration and the White House’s economic tolerance regarding tariffs makes it difficult for investors to assess market risk, he added.
It’s not all tariffs
While tariff policy was a catalyst for the recent sell-off, it wasn’t necessarily the only factor that contributed to the slide, analysts said.
For one, stock valuations were already elevated heading into 2025, Seydl said.
The market was trading at 22 times forward earnings — a measure of stock valuations — which was well above the 16.5 average over 1990 to 2024 and 12.8 average over 1950 to 2024, he said.
“When you have those elevated valuations, the market will be more sensitive to bad news,” Seydl said.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday.
In what could be Jerome Powell’s last as chair before President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed nominee Kevin Warsh takes the helm, central bankers maintained the federal funds rate in a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
Inflation has surged since the war with Iran began, leaving policymakers with limited room to act, according to Sean Snaith, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “We’re in a kind of suspended animation — between Iran and the Fed transition,” Snaith said.
Before the oil shock, inflation was holding above the Fed’s 2% target but not worsening. Now the jump in energy costs could have longer-term inflationary effects, economists say.
For Americans struggling in the face of higher gas prices and overall affordability challenges, the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged does little to ease budgetary pressures. “The cavalry isn’t coming anytime soon,” Snaith said.
How the Fed decision impacts you
The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on many consumer borrowing and savings rates.
Short-term rates are more closely pegged to the prime rate, which is typically 3 percentage points above the federal funds rate. Longer-term rates, such as home loans, are more influenced by inflation and other economic factors.
Credit cards
Most credit cards have a short-term rate, so they track the Fed’s benchmark.
After the Fed cut rates three times in the second half of 2025, the average annual percentage rate has stayed just under 20%, according to Bankrate.
“Without Fed rate cuts, there’s not much reason to expect meaningful declines anytime soon, so carrying a balance will remain very expensive,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
Mortgage rates
Fixed mortgage rates, on the other hand, don’t directly track the Fed but typically follow the lead of long-term Treasury rates.
Concerns about how the Iran war will impact the U.S. economy have already pushed the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage up to 6.38% as of Tuesday, from 5.99% at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily.
That leaves homeowners with existing low mortgage rates “feeling stuck,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. “Mortgages, more than any other credit type, work on a churn,” she said, referring to how a dip in rates can boost borrowing activity.
Student loans
Federal student loan rates are also fixed and based in part on the 10-year Treasury note, so most borrowers are somewhat shielded from Fed moves and recent economic uncertainty.
Current interest rates on undergraduate federal student loans made through June 30 are 6.39%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Interest rates for the upcoming school year will be based in part on the May auction of the 10-year note.
Car loans
Auto loan rates are tied to several factors, including the Fed’s benchmark. Because financing costs remain elevated, new car buyers are taking on longer loans to keep their monthly payments manageable, according to the latest data from Edmunds.
Even so, with the rate on a five-year new car loan near 7%, the average monthly payment on a new car rose to $773 in the first quarter of 2026, an all-time high.
“Car buyers are in a tough spot right now because they’re getting squeezed from both ends: high sticker prices and high interest rates, with neither showing any signs of letting up,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
“Until the rate picture shifts, buyers will keep stretching loan terms to make payments work, which only adds to the total cost of ownership down the road,” Yoon said.
Savings rates
While the Fed has no direct influence on deposit rates, the yields tend to be correlated with changes in the target federal funds rate. So, although rates on certificates of deposit and high-yield savings accounts have fallen from recent highs, they are holding above the annual rate of inflation.
For now, top-yielding online savings accounts and one-year CD rates pay around 4%, according to Bankrate.
“Yields on high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit are down from their peaks of a few years ago, but they’re still strong compared to what we’ve seen for most of the past decade,” Schulz said.
Milan Markovic | E+ | Getty Images
The average tax refund is 11.2% higher this season, compared with about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data.
As of April 10, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,397, up from $3,055 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday.
The IRS data reflects about 114 million individual returns received, out of about 164 million expected through Tax Day. Next week’s filing update is expected to include data through the April 15 deadline.
President Donald Trump‘s 2025 legislation, rebranded to the “working families tax cuts,” was a key talking point for Republicans on Tax Day.
With the November midterm elections approaching and Republicans defending slim majorities in Congress, many GOP lawmakers have highlighted Trump’s tax breaks and higher average refunds.
Meanwhile, affordability has been top of mind for many Americans amid rising costs of gas, electricity, food and other living expenses.
For filers who expected a refund this season, nearly one-quarter, or 23%, planned to use the funds to pay down credit card debt, and the same share said they would save the payment, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April. It polled 3,494 U.S. adults at the end of March.
Who benefited from Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
“It’s been a great tax season for the American people,” many of whom have benefited from Trump’s tax breaks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a White House press briefing on Wednesday.
More than 53 million filers claimed at least one of Trump’s “signature new tax cuts” — the deductions for tip income, overtime earnings, seniors and auto loan interest — the Department of the Treasury also announced on Wednesday.
Those filers, who claimed the deductions on Schedule 1-A, have seen an average tax cut of over $800, according to the Treasury. Tax cuts can trigger a higher refund or reduce taxes owed, depending on the filer’s situation.
Some filers who itemize tax breaks have also seen benefits from the bigger federal deduction limit for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Trump’s legislation raised that cap to $40,000, up from $10,000, for 2025.
The latest SALT deduction limit change is expected to primarily benefit higher earners, according to a May 2025 analysis of various proposals from the Tax Foundation.
The Treasury has not released data on how many filers have claimed the SALT deduction during the 2026 filing season.
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on April 16, 2026.
NYSE
U.S. stocks climbed to record highs on Thursday against a backdrop of war, an oil supply shock and economic forecasts warning of stunted growth amid a protracted conflict.
Many investors may be thinking: Why?
Largely, it’s because the stock market is a barometer of what investors think will happen in the future, rather than an assessment of the present day, according to economists and market analysts.
Investors are essentially shrugging off the Middle East conflict as a blip that will be resolved relatively quickly, they said.
“The stock market isn’t trying to price what’s happening today,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “The stock market is always trying to price what the world is going to look like six to 12 months from now.”
Why stocks have been ‘resilient’
The S&P 500, a U.S. stock index, fell about 8% in the initial weeks of the Iran war, from the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 to a recent low on March 30.
But stocks have rebounded since then, erasing all losses since the beginning of the war. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on Thursday — about 11% higher than its nadir at the end of March. That followed a record close on Wednesday.
“The market has remained very resilient in the face of the war and has rallied strongly on the prospect that it will be resolved,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.
A ship waits to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following the two-week temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran, which is conditional on the opening of the strait, in Oman on April 8, 2026.
Shady Alassar | Anadolu | Getty Images
And while investors cheered the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict, the temporary ceasefire has appeared tenuous, with the U.S. and Iran each accusing the other of breaking the agreement.
Nations haven’t been able to reach a peace deal ahead of the ceasefire’s end. Vice President JD Vance said U.S. officials left peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend after the Iranian delegation refused to agree to American demands not to develop a nuclear weapon.
The markets ‘have memory’
Ultimately, the stock market is signaling a collective belief that tensions will ratchet down, the war will end in the near term and oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz will normalize, economists said.
That’s largely because investors have been conditioned to believe that President Donald Trump will back off if the economic pain becomes too intense, economists said — the so-called “TACO” trade, shorthand for “Trump always chickens out.”
“Investors strongly believe — and have been conditioned to believe — he’s going to stand down, find a way to pivot, declare victory and move on,” Zandi said.
Trump has pushed back on the notion of backing down, framing his brinkmanship as a savvy negotiating tactic.
Economists pointed to a recent example of this dynamic: in April 2025 during so-called liberation day, when the Trump administration levied a host of tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Within days — after the stock market had cratered more than 12% — Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs. Stocks then saw one of their biggest daily rallies in history following Trump’s reversal.
Investors remember that Trump often de-escalates geopolitical shocks — which is why they’ve seized on positive headlines that hint at progress in peace talks, for example, Seydl said.
“The markets have memory,” Seydl said.
AI stocks and the ‘tech boom’
Traders celebrating at the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2026, as the S&P 500 closed above the 7,000 level for the first time.
NYSE
There are other factors underpinning market resilience during wartime, economists said.
One is the investors’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and technology stocks, which account for almost half of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, Zandi said.
“Those stocks run on their own dynamic independent of anything, including the war in Iran,” Zandi said. “I think we would have been down a lot more and it would have been harder for us to recover had it not been for the very, very optimistic perspectives on AI.”
We’re in the middle of a “tech boom” — and investors are likely to remain optimistic until they think the tech cycle has run its course, Seydl said.
More broadly, stock investors are essentially making a bet on the future earnings growth of a company — and the earnings backdrop has been “pretty solid,” Seydl said.
Consumer spending appears to be stable, for example, economists said. And companies are getting a boost to their after-tax earnings from the GOP’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” which, among other things, made it easier to write off investments upfront and therefore reduce their tax liability, Zandi said.
Going forward
Experts said there will be an economic hit from the Iran war, though.
“Despite the recent news of a temporary ceasefire, some damage is already done, and the downside risks remain elevated,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, wrote Tuesday.
A protracted conflict risks deep and global economic pain, he wrote.
Even if the conflict is short-lived — as the broad market expects — stocks are unlikely to march much higher until it’s clear the U.S. is on the other side of the war and its economic fallout, Zandi said.
If investors are incorrect, and President Trump doesn’t back down or quickly extricate the U.S. from the war, the stock market may see a “full-blown correction” or worse, Zandi said. A stock market correction is a decline of at least 10% from recent highs.
“Everyone thinks they know what the script is,” Zandi said. “Now they just need to follow the script. If they don’t, the market will have some real problems.”
The uncertainty provides yet another example of why the average investor with a long time horizon should stick to their investment plan and ignore the noise, experts said.
“Trying to time the market is very difficult if not impossible for the average investor,” Seydl said. “It’s better to take a long-term perspective and ride out bouts of volatility.”
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