Tariffs and Losses Shake Global Stocks

Tariffs and Losses Shake Global Stocks

Losses mounted last week as the domestic market closed deep in the red. The Emerging Markets index was the lone index in positive territory of these five indices. Looking more closely, the MSCI World Index suffered mostly because of losses in North America. The United States and Canada make up over 75% of this index , and their combined losses outweighed the gains from other developed countries.

The “most beautiful word in the English language”… continues to be one of the greatest drivers of market volatility this year. Last week, the markets saw the tariffs go into effect on Tuesday with our North American neighbors only to see negotiations roll a portion of them back again. Cars and Fertilizer were temporarily spared, but a White House official stated that about 50% of Mexican goods and 62% of Canadian goods could still face tariffs.

In his comments before a joint Congress Tuesday night, President Trump stated regarding tariffs that there would be “a little disturbance…but we’re okay with that”

For the U.S. markets, this uncertainty weighed heavily, as the S&P 500 faced its third losing week in a row. It was also the biggest weekly drop since September of last year. These losses pushed both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 into the negative for the year, while the Dow is still holding onto gains for now.

Major Markets		YTD as of 03/07/2025
	Nasdaq
	Dow Jones Industrial
	S&P 500
	MSCI World
	MSCI EM
	Russell 2000
	Bar US Agg Bnd

S&P Sectors

YTD as of 03/07/2025

Comm. Services

Cons. Discretionary

Cons. Staples

Energy

Financials

Health Care

Industrials

Info. Technology

Materials

Real Estate

Utilities

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In the background to these geopolitical events, the earnings season reached its peak number of companies reporting at the end of February. 677 reported last week and another 412 companies will report this week. On Friday, FactSet found that 259 of the S&P 500 companies mentioned the word “tariff” or “tariffs” in their earnings call transcripts – the highest in 10 years. It’s clear that geopolitics is on the minds of company leaders.

Lastly, Treasury yields saw a slight increase last week, especially in the 20 and 30-year durations. This, along with struggles in the equity market, showed that there were few safe places free from pullbacks last week.

https://www.msci.com/indexes/index/990100

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y03qleevvo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gmjmymg0no

https://insight.factset.com/highest-number-of-sp-500-companies-citing-tariffs-on-earnings-calls-over-past-10-years

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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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