Investors in Disarray as Tariffs and “Fake News” Cause Extreme Volatility

Published: April 7, 2025 by Omor IE

Key Points

Wall Street bounced back on reports of Hassett saying that Trump was mulling a 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China.
Those reports turned out to be false, but it led to a stellar comeback in the market.
The market has declined from its highs today but has remained exceptionally volatile.
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Wall Street is seeing historic volatility today as the market opened solidly red. This was as expected since Trump spoke on Air Force One and appeared unwavering on tariffs. Many mainstream investors saw a “Black Monday,” and at least that’s what Jim Cramer thought would happen.

Unbelievably, the market bounced back to solidly green after plunging by over 4%. The S&P gained 6.22% in half an hour after news circulated that a White House senior advisor Kevin Hassett commented that the president was mulling a 90-day pause on all tariffs, minus China. You’d think that’d be the end of the crash and the market would recover as it did after Trump paused tariffs on Mexico and Canada in early March. Instead, it turned out to be a false report. The White House called these reports “fake news.”

The market turned red yet again, but it wasn’t long before buying pressure took the S&P to neutral levels.

Here’s a market update as of 11:00 A.M (ET) today.

The S&P 500 is up 3.88 points, or 0.08%.
The Nasdaq Composite is up 98.86 points, or 0.63%.
Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 254.68 points, or 0.66%.

Retail Investors Buy the Dip as the Market Swings Rapidly

There has been significant buying pressure from retail investors as they’ve been buying the dip on several oversold stocks. Many expect the current tariff-driven downturn to be similar to that of 2020. Jim Cramer believes the current crash is more likely to be synonymous to the short-lived pandemic downturn than the drawn-out 2008 one, though he wasn’t entirely sure which one it could be. That’s both ominous and auspicious, depending on who you ask.

In the meantime, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are the mega-cap stocks making solid moves to the upside. Conversely, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) have all moved down.

Apple and Tesla are both down due to China-related risks. The latter declined below Lutnick’s “never this cheap” level after analyst Dan Ives (who has consistently been a big Tesla bull) slashed his price target for TSLA by 43%.

Notable Gainers Today

RH (NYSE:RH) is up 15% as many are buying the dip. The stock is still down 57.6% year-to-date. This is the furniture company whose CEO made the “Oh sh–” comment on live TV.
Newsmax (NYSE: NMAX) is up 14% after securing a $1.2 billion equity agreement that will allow it to share the aforementioned amount of Class B common stock over two years.
Golden Ocean Group (NASDAQ: GOGL) is up 12% as part of a recovery.
Yalla Group (NYSE: YALA) is up 11.4%.
United States Steel (NYSE: X) is up 11% due to Trump ordering a fresh review of Nippon Steel’s bid for the company.

Notable Losers Today

HUTCHMED (NASDAQ: HCM) is down 12% as Chinese stocks fall.
Super Hi International (NASDAQ: HDL) is down 12%.
Pharvaris (NASDAQ: PHVS) is down 9.3% after reporting 2024 financial results.
Zymeworks (NASDAQ: ZYME) is down 9.5%.
American Axle & Manufacturing (NYSE: AXL) is down 9%.