S&P 500 hits lowest close in almost a year as hopes wane for tariff concessions

S&P 500 hits lowest close in almost a year as hopes wane for tariff concessions

By Sinéad Carew and Shashwat Chauhan

Tue April 8, 2025 6:32 PM

Expecting … hoping! … that China would blink before the midnight deadline, all the indexes were way up in the morning, the Dow up over 1500. Then around 10:30 came the fateful announcement not only that China wasn’t about to blink but that Trump was going to issue a further penalty of 104%. This sent the market plummeting again as hopes for concessions evaporated and by 3 pm lost all their gains and dove another 900 points in the red before zooming up in the last fifteen minutes to recover all but 320. Does that last minute rally portend a good day for tomorrow?  

At least we’re not seeing 4-digit losses again though the S&P has now lost nearly $6 trillion and the VIX, though it hasn’t returned to the 60-level, did rise modestly to the still scary 52 after having fallen to the much better 36 during the morning rally. Q1 reporting begins next week and it is expected to be dour which will send the market down even further. Today, for every stock that rose, 3 fell. Volume remains at historic highs with 23.4 billion shares traded vs the average of 17.3 billion. But at least it’s below Monday’s all-time record of 29.4 billion. 

DJ: 37,965.60  -349.26      NAS: 15,603.26  +15.48       S&P: 5,062.25  -11.83         4/7

DJ: 37,645.59  -320.01      NAS: 15,267.91  -335.35      S&P: 4,982.77  -79.48         4/8

Tue 4-8-25 6:32 pm S&P 500 hits lowest close in almost a year as hopes wane for tariff concessions | Reuters