After the stock market’s best week in almost two years, volatility continued as Trump’s latest tariff plans and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s caution on the economic outlook offered little additional clarity on the path forward for investors.
In a speech on Wednesday, Powell warned of stagflation risks tied to Trump’s economic policies. Powell’s comments sent stocks tanking, with the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) plummeting over 2%.
Wednesday’s losses upset what had become a more stable environment for financial markets after the initial shock of “Liberation Day” sent markets reeling earlier this month.
All three major indexes finished this week’s holiday-shortened trading in red figures.
Adding to that volatility, President Trump on Thursday further upped the pressure on Powell in comments made online and at the White House.
“If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump said. “I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late. Always too late.”
Trump’s comments came after Powell threw cold water on a possible “Fed put,” the belief the central bank would cut rates to support markets.
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Market sentiment has unraveled under the weight of rising uncertainty.
Risk indicators like the CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) — often referred to as Wall Street’s fear gauge — have spiked to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 market crash of 2020, with the potential for further turbulence in the days and weeks to come.
“Investors are anxious,” Stuart Kaiser, head of US equity trading strategy at Citi, wrote in reaction to recent market swings. Kaiser later told Yahoo Finance on Thursday that the message markets delivered this week is clear: “We’re not out of the woods … and the bad news is not fully priced in.”
“We’ve gotten headlines that seem relatively run of the mill,” he said. “Even Chair Powell yesterday gave a textbook answer: Tariffs are bad for growth. They push inflation higher — and markets still sold off on that.”
In other words, investor sentiment is so fragile that even familiar warnings are triggering outsized reactions, a sign that uncertainty is still dominating the market narrative.
Before the latest round of Fed drama grabbed investor attention, the announcement of costly new restrictions on Chinese chip exports on Wednesday pressured tech stocks, notably AI bellwether Nvidia (NVDA).
