Market Struggles Amid Tariff Uncertainty

Market Struggles Amid Tariff Uncertainty

The Major Markets had another tough week. All five indices closed lower, marking the fourth consecutive losing week in a row for the S&P 500. This pullback took the S&P 500 below its 200-day moving average from a technical viewpoint and marked a correction threshold for the index.

President Trump’s policy around tariff has been a big driver of the market turmoil. In an interview over the weekend , the president stated that the country is in “a period of transition” when asked about the possibly of a recession. President Trump has been pushing a policy around reciprocal tariffs with other countries in a desire to re-onshore segments of the economy.

The market opened lower on the news Monday and sold off into the close. There was further selling Tuesday before getting a reprieve midweek. Additional tit for tat threats made headlines midweek between the US and Canada as well as with the EU.

This all has created a sense of uncertainty for the market as investors have seen the stock market pull back to September levels.

Market Struggles Amid Tariff Uncertainty - Major Markets Image

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In economic news, the Consumer Price Index came in lower than expected on a month over month and year over year basis. Additionally initial jobless claims came in below expectations with a headline reading of 220k. However, Friday’s University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report saw a drop for the third month in a row. The report highlighted that consumer sentiment has taken a significant hit due to

“the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences.”

Possibly the one stable place within the market last week was in treasuries which saw the yield curve effectively unchanged for the week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ0vjc8UzDw

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/11/business/tariffs-canada-trump/index.html

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The S&P 500® Index is a capitalization index of 500 stock-designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of stock representing all major industries. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500

The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (The Dow®), is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S. blue-chip companies. The index covers all industries except transportation and utilities. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average

The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. Today the NASDAQ Composite includes over 2,500 companies, more than most other stock market indexes. Because it is so broad-based, the Composite is one of the most widely followed and quoted major market indexes. https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/Index/Overview/COMP

The MSCI World Index, which is part of The Modern Index Strategy, is a broad global equity benchmark that represents large and mid-cap equity performance across 23 developed markets countries. It covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country and MSCI World benchmark does not offer exposure to emerging markets.

The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index is designed to represent the performance of large- and mid-cap securities in 24 Emerging Markets countries of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As of December 2017, it had more than 830 constituents and covered approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country. https://www.msci.com/

The S&P GSCI Crude Oil index provides investors with a reliable and publicly available benchmark for investment performance in the crude oil market. https://us.spindices.com/indices

Companies in the S&P 500 Sector Indices are classified based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®). https://us.spindices.com/indices

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