Stock market today: Dow plunges 1,700 points, Nasdaq, S&P 500 pummeled in biggest rout since 2020
US stocks cratered on Thursday in their worst one-day sell-off since 2020, with the Dow tumbling almost 1,700 points as President Trump’s
surprisingly steep “Liberation Day” tariffs
sent shockwaves through markets worldwide.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (
^IXIC
) led the sell-off, plummeting 6%. The S&P 500 (
^GSPC
) sank nearly 5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (
^DJI
) tumbled 4%. The Dow’s 1,700-point drop was the fifth-worst in its history.
Megacap tech stocks were clobbered: Apple (
AAPL
) shares fell over 9% amid
concerns about disruption
to its supply chain. China, the source of key iPhone components, was hit with additional US tariffs that raised its overall rate to 54%.
Nvidia (
NVDA
) and other chip stocks
also tumbled
thanks to similar concerns, with the AI chip leader sliding over 7%. The so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks that led the market rally over the past two years
shed over $900 billion in market cap.
Small-cap stocks were also hit during the session, as the Russell 2000 (
^RUT
) index declined more than 6.4% to close in bear market territory.
The 10-year Treasury yield (
^TNX
) fell about 14 basis points to close at 4.05%, its lowest level since October 2024. Meanwhile the US dollar index (
DX-Y.NYB
) tumbled 1.5% to 101.92, also its lowest level since October 2024.
The
two-step approach to tariffs
unveiled by Trump on Wednesday imposes a baseline rate of 10% on all US trading partners but applies extra duties to countries considered “bad actors” on trade — meaning they face much higher rates. The levies go into effect on April 5 and April 9, respectively.
In total, some
185 counties are impacted by the tariffs
, and the new duties set the effective US tariff rate at its highest level in over 100 years.
Read more: The latest on Trump’s tariffs
For his part, Trump downplayed the market reaction. In response to a question about the market sell-off Trump claimed that markets will eventually “boom.”
But stocks around the world sold off as the likelihood of
retaliation from trading partners
fueled fears of a full-on trade war and a severe hit to global growth. The pan-European benchmark Stoxx 600 (
^STOXX
) sank over 2.5%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 (
^N225
) slumped 2.7% to its lowest level since August.
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