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Wall Street is in panic mode about the outlook for the rest of 2025 after a historic stock sell-off.
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Major indexes ended the worst week since 2020 as investors digested Trump’s widesweeping tariffs.
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Here’s what market pros are saying about the tariff-fueled crash.
The trade war crushed stocks this week.
The market endured its worst week since 2020, with the S&P 500 losing nearly 7% over the last five trading days, while the Nasdaq 100 slipped into bear market territory for the first time since 2022.
Here’s what the pros are saying about the decline — and what could be coming next.
Tariffs appear to have pushed the US economy even closer to a downturn, according to John Hussman, the president of Hussman Investment Trust.
Hussman said his firm’s recession gauge, called the Hussman Recession Warning Composite, flashed a positive signal on April 1, the day before Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs to the world.
That signal, in combination with other signs of a weakening economy, is making the case that a downturn is coming, he said.
“Wednesday’s tariff announcement only amplifies recession risks that have been developing for months,” Hussman wrote in a note to clients.
JPMorgan told clients it raised its risk of a coming recession to 60%, up from its prior estimate of 40%.
“Disruptive US policies have been recognized as the biggest risk to the global outlook all year,” the bank wrote in a note on Friday. “We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the US and possibly global economy into recession this year,” it later added.
“The Trump administration’s actions this week have the potential not only to tip the US into a recession, but to devastate the global economy,” Emily Bowersock Hill, the CEO of Bockersock Capital Partners, wrote in a note. “Other countries, including China, are already beginning to retaliate against US tariffs, and that retaliation will slow global growth.”
The Fed could react to economic weakness by cutting interest rates even faster than markets anticipated, according to Jason Pride, the chief of investment strategy at Glenmede. Four to five rate cuts are now looking to be the “new baseline for 2025,” he wrote in a note on Friday.
“It’s much too soon to see any downstream impacts from trade policy in the jobs market and the Fed is unlikely to wait for that sort of evidence before adjusting its thought process on the appropriate stance of monetary policy,” Pride added.
