Home

 › 

Investing

 › 

S&P 500 Plunges on Falling Consumer Confidence

S&P 500 Plunges on Falling Consumer Confidence

Published: by Omor IE

Key Points

  • The stock market is falling due to continuous uncertainty.

  • Consumer confidence is falling, and that has added to the bearish sentiment.

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is still green due to strong industrial data.

  • Are you ahead, or behind on retirement? SmartAsset's free tool can match you with a financial advisor in minutes to help you answer that today. Each advisor has been carefully vetted, and must act in your best interests. Don't waste another minute; learn more here.(Sponsor)

The S&P 500 Index has closed green for three straight days; two of those green candles only materialized by a hair. Today, the market opened flat and then declined as there hasn’t been any positive news to drive up the market. Lingering fears from the past couple of weeks and recent data on cooling consumer confidence have kept investors uncertain about where the market could be heading.

Consumer sentiment dropped to a four-year low in March. Forward-looking expectations fell to the lowest in 12 years. Meanwhile, the reciprocal tariff deadline for April 2nd is approaching closer. These tariffs are softer than what investors expected previously, but tariffs are still going to bring pain to the economy.

Here’s a market update as of 10:00 A.M (ET) today.

  • The S&P 500 is down 17.31 points, or 0.31%.
  • The Nasdaq Composite is down 178.6 points, or 0.97%.
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 154.59 points, or 0.36%.

Key Macros Today

  • U.S. durable goods orders came in positive at 0.9% vs. the forecast of a 1% decline.
  • Core durable goods also came in hotter at 0.7% vs. 0.2% expected.

These surprises imply that there’s still strength in the industrial sector and that manufacturers are ramping up production.

Mortgage applications in the U.S. also fell 2% in the week ending March 21. This is a narrower print from the 6.2% decline the week before.

Tariff Fears Remain

Tariffs have been the leading cause of the stock market’s decline in the past few weeks. Trump said he was “set” on tariffs for April 2nd, but no one knows for sure how harsh or soft these tariffs will be.

These tariff fears are still weighing in on the stock market, along with fears about government default risks coming into the spotlight again. Congressional Budget Office Estimates say that the U.S. government could face default risk as soon as August without a debt ceiling increase.

Waning Consumer Confidence

Low consumer confidence is mainly why investors are cautious today.  The Conference Board’s measure for future expectations fell 9.6 points to a 12-year low of 65.2. A read below 80 usually indicates that a recession is coming, so this is a worrying read for Wall Street.

The broad’s monthly confidence index of current conditions is currently at 92.9. It declined 7.2 points which is the fourth consecutive monthly pullback. Investors expected this to be at 93.5.

Other Assets

  • Gold: Prices remain locked in the $3,000 to $3,060 range.
  • Natural Gas (Henry Hub): Up 0.57%.
  • Crude Oil WTI Futures: Up 1.45%.
  • Bitcoin: Down 0.6% in the past 24 hours.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Savushkin / iStock via Getty Images.

To top