Honeymoon ends for Trump on US financial markets
A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Washington, United States — The euphoria that Donald Trump’s election triggered for financial markets seems to be a thing of the past as investors now fret over the prospect of the president’s trade wars sparking a US recession.
On Monday the S&P 500 stock index dropped sharply, erasing all the gains it had posted since Trump won the election last November.
It kept falling Tuesday, a far cry from the 6.5 percent it had risen in the first month of the second Trump administration.
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“The Trump trade really started post-election in a real sense on the heels of what appeared to be a pro-growth, pro-business administration taking over,” Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management told AFP.
The “Trump trade” is a term describing a rally in certain sectors in the hope that having Trump in power will make them better off, thanks to deregulation or tax cuts, for example.
But “the positive results of a pro-growth, pro-business administration have yet to show themselves,” Hogan said, while “the negative aspects of a protectionist administration are what show up first.”
Tesla in free fall
Sam Burns of Mill Street Research said that after the election the stock market rose in a sort of “mini-bubble” because of excitement over another Trump term, not because of economic fundamentals.
He cited the case of Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla.
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At first investors thought it would benefit greatly from the Trump win but Musk’s very close relationship with Trump — he is leading the administration’s brutal cost-cutting, staff-slashing drive — “can cut both ways,” said Burns.
It is hard to say how much Musk’s aggressive hard-right public comments, including his support for far-right parties in Europe, may have scared away potential Tesla buyers. But the company’s sales have dropped sharply in several markets, mainly in China and Europe.
And its share price has fallen by half since its peak in mid-December, causing $750 billion in market value to vanish.
Crypto blues
During the election campaign Trump came out as a fierce cryptocurrency defender, an about-face for someone who had long opposed the industry. On Friday he said he wanted the United States to be a pioneer in digital assets.
But crypto so far seems unimpressed with Trump’s economic policies. Bitcoin on Tuesday was trading at about $80,000 per unit, roughly its level from November.
That is more than 25 percent below the level it had reached just hours before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
US regulators have dropped proceedings against big names in crypto like trading platforms Coinbase and Kraken that were launched under Joe Biden. But this has not halted the decline in cryptocurrency prices.
Investors are unhappy because the Trump administration has not announced a policy of government purchase of crypto, even though last week it announced the creation of a cryptocurrency “strategic reserve,” founded with digital assets seized by US law enforcement authorities.
Financial sector wobbles
US banks counting on deregulation under the Trump administration had for the most part retained the gains they posted since the election, at least until late February, said Patrick Donlon of Fiduciary Trust.
But now, recession fears have turned things upside down. In a matter of days, big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have seen all the gains they posted since November 5 simply evaporate.
“The market is starting to take a more discerning approach in identifying the real winners under the new administration,” said Donlon.
