A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stock futures were hit once again on Monday as the White House remained defiant after President Donald Trump’s rollout of shockingly high tariff rates on most key U.S. trading partners has sparked a historic three-day market meltdown.
S&P 500 futures shed 1.7% with the benchmark nearing bear market territory when official trading begins. It closed Friday down 17.4% from its closing record touched in February. Dow Jones Industrial average futures fell 720 points, or 1.9%. Nasdaq-100 futures lost 2% as investors continued to shed their one-time tech winners to raise cash.
This follows a market wipeout to end last week:
- The Dow posted back-to-back losses of more than 1,500 points for the first time ever, including a 2,231-point shellacking on Friday.
- The S&P 500 dropped 6% on Friday for its worst performance since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020. The benchmark lost 10% in two days.
- The Nasdaq Composite entered a bear market Friday — down 22% from its record — after losses on Thursday and Friday of nearly 6% apiece.
Trump’s initial unilateral 10% tariff went into effect Saturday. Investors were hoping for news over the weekend that the Trump administration was having successful negotiations with countries to lower the tariff rates, or at the very least, was considering delaying the set of so-called reciprocal tariffs due to take effect April 9. Instead the president and his key advisors played down the sell-off:
- Trump said Sunday evening on the market sell-off: “I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
- Trump added, “We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China. And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.”
- Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News that the tariffs would not be postponed. “The tariffs are coming… They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks.”
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted to NBC News that more than 50 countries have approached the administration for negotiations, but cautioned “they’ve been bad actors for a long time, and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.”
Investors were surprised first by the magnitude of certain rates applied to trading partners that appeared to be based on a formula without a valid rationale based on established economic theory. They were rattled further when China on Friday decided to retaliate with a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports, instead of negotiating first.
Dow futures
“The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe…this is not what we voted for,” wrote Bill Ackman, billionaire head of Pershing Square, on X. “The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system. Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.”
While the administration said at least 50 nations had reached out to start negotiations, Canada and the European Union were planning to follow China’s lead and readying retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Vietnam has offered already to cut tariffs on the U.S. to zero, according to Trump, but they appeared to be the exception so far.
Fears grew on Wall Street that the sell-off would feed on itself with hedge funds forced to sell down equities and other risky assets to raise cash needed meet margin calls. The CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, surged to the 50 level early Monday, an extreme level seen mostly only during bear markets.
“Margin calls are going out as we speak,” said Chris Rupkey chief economist at FWDBONDS. “For a third straight day investors in U.S. equity markets have turned (a) huge thumbs down on the White House Liberation Day tariffs which have rocked Wall Street.”
The contagion spread to other assets and around the globe. The price of bitcoin, tumbled below $77,000. U.S. crude oil dropped below $60 a barrel to a multiyear low. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 13% for its biggest decline since 1997. Germany’s DAX Index lost as much as 10% during Monday’s session.
Tesla led the losses in premarket trading, down 6%. Caterpillar, a big seller of construction equipment around the world, fell 5% early Monday.
Wall Street’s fear gauge skyrockets
Early Monday, the CBOE Market Volatility Index, otherwise known as ‘The VIX,’ was surging, with it touching 60 at one point. Wall Street’s fear gauge, which is based on the prices of put and call options on the S&P 500, was showing extreme levels of fear.
During the March 2020 Covid market plunge, the VIX traded in the 60-to-80 range before the stock market rebounded.
-John Melloy
Hong Kong stocks lead sell-off in Asia-Pacific markets as trade war worries fuel risk-off sentiment
Asia-Pacific markets extended their sell-off Monday as fears over a global trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs fueled a risk-off mood.
Hong Kong markets led losses in the region, with the Hang Seng Index declining 13.22% to 19,828.30 while the Hang Seng Tech index plunged 17.16% to 4,401.51. Mainland China’s CSI 300 plummeted 7.05% to 3,589.44, making this its largest one-day drop since last October.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 7.83% to hit an 18-month low at 31,136.58,while the broader Topix index plummeted 7.79% to 2,288.66. Earlier in the day, trading in Japanese futures was suspended due the market hitting circuit breakers.
In South Korea, the Kospi index plunged 5.57% to 2,328.20, while the small-cap Kosdaq declined 5.25% to 651.30.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 4.23%, to end the day at 7,343,30. The benchmark slid into correction territory with an 11% decline since its last high in February, in its previous session.
India’s benchmark Nifty 50 dropped 4.08% while the broader BSE Sensex lost 3.91% as at 1.50 p.m. local time.
— Amala Balakrishner
European markets tank at the open
European stocks dropped sharply after Monday’s opening bell, as the fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs continued.
The Stoxx 600 surpassed a 6% loss shortly after trading began, before pulling back slightly to a loss of around 5.9% by 8:26 a.m. in London. Germany’s DAX index, home to some of the region’s biggest companies, initially shed more than 10% before paring some of those losses to trade around 7% lower.
— Chloe Taylor
Jim Cramer on the sell-off: ‘I’m not going to panic’
CNBC’s Jim Cramer stressed that, even in the face of Sunday’s futures sell-off, most investors should not bail on the market.
“I’m not going to panic. I’m not going to say, ‘Get out now.’ I think you have to stay the course here,” Cramer said on CNBC’s special live broadcast. Cramer was reiterating the advice he gave CNBC Investing Club members earlier Sunday in his weekly column. “Let’s just be a little cooler. Recognize that there is going to some pain. You can’t dodge it,” Cramer added on CNBC.
— Kevin Stankiewicz
New Trump comments
Stock futures were not helped by new comments by President Trump to reporters Sunday evening. The president said unless the China trade deficit is solved, there will be no deal, according to Reuters headlines. On the market sell-off, the president told reporters that sometimes you need to take medicine, according to Reuters.
Dow futures were last down 1,600 points.
-John Melloy
Oil crosses below $60 a barrel on growing recession fears
U.S. oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel on Sunday on fears President Donald Trump’s global tariffs would push the U.S., and maybe the world, into a recession.
Futures tied to U.S. West Texas intermediate crude fell more than 3% to $59.74 on Sunday night. The move comes after back-to-back 6% declines last week. WTI is now at the lowest since April 2021.
— Tanaya Macheel
Bitcoin drops below $80,000 as cryptocurrencies join global market rout
Bitcoin slid under $80,000 on Sunday evening, joining the broader market rout after showing resilience last week.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last lower by 5% at $78,647.33, according to Coin Metrics. Other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger losses overnight. Ether and the token tied to Solana tumbled about 10% each.
Bitcoin falls below $80,000 support
The flagship cryptocurrency usually trades like a big tech stock and is often viewed by traders as a leading indicator of market sentiment, although last week it bucked the broader market meltdown – holding between $82,000 and $83,000 and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.
Bitcoin is off its January all-time high by about 28%. It is expected to continue moving in tandem with equities, absent a crypto-specific catalyst, as global recession fears overshadow any regulatory tailwinds crypto was expected to benefit from this year.
— Tanaya Macheel
Commerce Secretary Lutnick says White House will not postpone tariffs
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that the Trump administration will remain steadfast in its reciprocal tariffs on major U.S. trading partners even in the face of a global stock market sell-off.
“The tariffs are coming,” Lutnick said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “He announced it, and he wasn’t kidding. The tariffs are coming. Of course they are.”
The White House is not considering an extension of the start deadline, he added.
“There is no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks,” Lutnick said. “The president needs to reset global trade. Everybody has a trade surplus and we have a trade deficit.”
— Tanaya Macheel, Hakyung Kim