New York
CNN
—
Rinse, repeat.
Stocks rose Tuesday after President Donald Trump did a 180-degree turn on his threat to place a massive 50% tariff on goods imported from the European Union.
The Dow was up 530 points, or 1.28%. The broader S&P 500 rose 1.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.98%.
Investors cheered in their first day of trading since Trump on Sunday delayed EU tariffs until July 9. He had initially said they’d go into effect next week. US markets were closed for Memorial Day on Monday, so Tuesday is the first chance for Wall Street to react since the on-again, off-again tariffs went off, again.
If this feels familiar, that’s because this narrative continues to play out over and over again during the Trump administration. The president continues to threaten tariffs, markets react — sometimes severely — and the president often walks back his pledge, giving markets a sigh of relief.
That’s why, after nearly plunging into a bear market in April, markets have largely rallied since Trump paused his “Liberation Day” tariffs and announced trade talks — and even a couple of deal frameworks with the United Kingdom and China. But several mini-threats and pauses since then have sent markets on a roller coaster.
Stocks extended their gains on Tuesday after new survey data from the Conference Board showed consumer confidence in May was better than expected, improving after five months of decline.
Also helping stocks Tuesday: a breather for the beleaguered bond market. Yields, which trade in opposite direction to prices, fell Tuesday on some relief from Trump’s pause on his suddenly reignited trade war. The 30-year yield fell below 5%, and the 10-year yield fell below 4.5% — both psychological levels that had worried investors for a couple weeks, particularly after Trump and Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” threatened to increase America’s debt by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.
US bonds also bounced back after Japan’s bonds rallied on some signs from the country’s finance ministry that it may invest more in foreign bond markets a day after it reported Germany eclipsed Japan as the world’s largest debt financer — a title Japan had held for 34 years.
The dollar, which had also been squeezed in recent weeks on debt and trade war concerns, rallied a little on Tuesday.
But market analysts were cautious about the staying power of Tuesday’s relief rally, given Trump’s ability to change the narrative on a dime. They also continue to worry about the trade war and America’s unsustainable debt situation.
“We view the current period as still the ‘calm before the storm,’ and we expect growth in the second half of the year to weaken,” said Nathan Sheets, global chief economist at Citigroup, in a note to investors Tuesday. “We remain concerned about potential downside risks.”
Market veteran Ed Yardeni this weekend warned clients to “buckle up, again” after Trump’s Friday tariff threat.
“Stock investing is likely to continue to feel like riding a mechanical bull in a rowdy sports bar. Keep focused on not falling off the bull!” Yardeni wrote in a note.
Yardeni said he remains bullish on US stocks but cautioned that Trump “needs to declare victory” in his trade war before the end of the summer to “avoid a recession later this year.”
