ExclusiveWall Street Rebounds Sharply After Trump Announces 90-day Tariff Pause

U.S. stocks soared on Wednesday after President Trump's stunning reversal on tariffs, with the Dow climbing nearly 7.9 percent, the S&P 500 surging a whopping 9.5 percent, its biggest one-day percentage gain since 2008, and the Nasdaq skyrocketing more than 12 percent, its largest percentage gain since 2001, and second-highest on record. Trump on Wednesday said he would temporarily lower the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries while hiking tariffs on China. His turnabout followed the most intense period of financial market volatility since the early days of the pandemic. Brian Mulberry is Client Portfolio Manager at Zacks Investment Management. We get certainty when we have clear rules on what the cost of capital and the cost of doing business is going to look like. We got a little bit of that today with a 90-day pause in tariffs. Now we only have to deal with basically a 10 percent baseline tariff. That creates a much more certain outcome in terms of the cost of goods, what trade will look like, and obviously much less of an impact on consumers. Also helping investor sentiment was the U.S. Treasury's $39 billion 10-year note auction, priced at a high yield of 4.435 percent, and showing solid investor demand. Stock-high flyers Wednesday included Delta Airlines, which soared over 23 percent after the carrier beat first-quarter profit expectations. Shares of United Airlines surged more than 26 percent, and American Airlines jumped more than 22 percent. Microchip technology surged 27 percent, and fellow chip maker NVIDIA gained more than 18.5 percent. Among other Magnificent Seven stocks, Tesla climbed over 22 percent, and Apple and Meta platforms each added about 15 percent. Also on Wednesday, minutes from the Federal Reserve's meeting last month were released. Policymakers were nearly unanimous that the economy faced risks of higher inflation and slower growth. Thursday's Consumer Price Index will offer more clues on the direction of inflation and interest rates.