Tariff Tantrums and the SPX Bear Run

Back to normalcy or WWIII?

This post builds on what I alluded in the previous one about the precarious situation we are in today, both for stock markets and for our livelihoods. It was also written before Trump’s backtracks starting 23 April 2025.

Thanks to Trump, April 2025 might go down in history as the first President-inflicted bear market of the 21st Century. Veteran market participants (like this author) would remember the past bear markets. There was the dotcom bust which lasted almost three years. There was the March 2020 pandemic scare which was a 29% drop in just one month. More recently, in 2022, the market dropped a more manageable -24% and the whole ordeal lasted 9 months.

Then there was the mother of all bear markets, the GFC, which was a whopping 55% drop over 17 months back in 2007-2009. Scary, would be an under-statement. The global financial system as we knew it could collapse. We were days from the Second Great Depression. It was hard to believe, and still is, but both God of Fortune and Lady L…