Stock Market Suffers a Brutal Opening

The stock market opened on Thursday exactly as predicted—with a thud. Investors seemed rattled as they continued to digest the implications of President Trump's bigger-than-expected tariffs, reports the Street.

• The Dow fell more than 1,100 points, or 2.7%.
• The S&P 500 fell 187 points, or 3.3%. The benchmark index is on track to have its worst day since September 2022, notes CNBC.
• The Nasdaq, focused on tech stocks, plunged 790 points, or 4.3%.

• "If he would have come in with just the 10%, I think the markets would probably be up quite a bit right now," says strategist Larry Tentarelli of the Blue Chip Trend Report. "But because the tariffs came in bigger than many expected, I think what that does is it creates more downside volatility right now." (In addition to a baseline 10% tariff on all US imports, Trump levied additional penalties on individual nations.)
• Global markets also sank, and the US dollar fell to its lowest level of the year, per the Wall Street Journal. The dollar weakened more than 2% against the euro, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen, among others. Part of the reason is that "foreign investors are losing confidence in US investments that have come to dominate global portfolios," per the story.

(Trump is taking a big gamble, but he insists it will pay off. Much skepticism exists.)