Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on all imports to the US and introduce additional customs duties for America’s biggest trading partners has caused the strongest stock market crash in America since the 2020 pandemic.
At the opening of Thursday’s trading, the S&P 500 index fell by over 4%, Nasdaq by 4.9%, Dow Jones by 3.7%, and the Russell 2000 index, which includes small-cap companies, plummeted by almost 7%.
In just over an hour of trading, shares of the largest American companies lost $2 trillion in value. The total market capitalization of the American market decreased by $2.7 trillion – a negative record for 2020, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal.
Shares of Apple, whose factories are located in China – the country targeted by Trump’s toughest tariffs – fell by 9.5%, reducing the company’s value by $300 billion. Shares of retailers Target and Dollar Tree, whose shelves are full of Chinese products, fell by over 12%. Amazon lost $165 billion in market capitalization, while Nvidia lost $183 billion.
Trump’s biggest donors suffered billions in losses: Elon Musk lost $6 billion due to the decline in Tesla’s shares, while Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group, lost $3 billion, according to The New York Times. The oil market recorded its sharpest drop in three years: Brent crude futures contracts fell by 7%, dropping below $70 per barrel. The MOEX index (Moscow Stock Exchange) fell by 2.3% and closed lower for the 12th consecutive day, something that has never happened in recent Russian history.
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