Summary
Here’s a quick overview of what happened today:
Markets around the world continued to reel from Donald Trump’s tariffs. The US stock market had a second day of steep declines, with all three indexes down over 5% for the day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite entered a bear market, the first time a major index fund has done so since 2022. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 saw its biggest daily drop since the pandemic.
US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell issued a rare warning that the tariffs could lead to both higher unemployment and higher inflation. “We face a highly uncertain outlook,” Powell remarked.
Ignoring Powell’s words of caution, Trump instead said on social media that Powell should cut interest rates. “CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS,” Trump said.
Carmakers continued to offer deals to customers in light of the new 25% tariffs placed on cars and auto parts. Stallantis and Hyundai became the latest manufacturers to say they’ll offer discounts to US customers in the coming months, as fear of higher car prices take over.
Nintendo announced that the release of its Switch 2 will be delayed amid Trump’s new tariffs, an early sign of the supply chain issues the new levies will have on products.
Nasdaq closes in a bear market
The Nasdaq Composite closed in a bear market as trading ended Thursday afternoon, meaning the tech-heavy index was over 20% below its most recent peak, which was on December 16.
The last time one of the three major indexes closed in a bear market was in June 2022, when inflation hit 9%.
Nasdaq fell over 5% today, similar to the S&P 500 and the Dow. An analysis from Dow Jones Market Data estimates that the last two days have seen $6.4tn wiped off of the US stock market.
Major tech stocks have been some of the hardest hit by the turmoil on Wall Street, including Apple and Nvidia, which both saw drops of over 7% today.
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