WhyItDropped

S&P 500 · April 4, 2025

The Tariff Shock — S&P 500

-5.97%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The 2025 tariff shock

near the end of it · 2025-02-19 → 2025-04-08, -18.90% over the whole period

What happened that day?

  • The US announced sweeping tariffs on 2 April 2025. On 4 April the S&P 500 fell 5.97% — a second consecutive heavy session
  • Tariffs reach share prices along several paths
  • Higher import costs compress profits; retaliation abroad hurts exports
  • Above all, companies must recalculate where to place supply chains, which pushes them to delay investment decisions
  • What markets disliked most was the uncertainty itself. Because rates could change with negotiations, neither companies nor investors could settle on a fixed calculation
  • Fell 18.9% from peak

Sources

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.