The murmurs spread quietly at first, then exploded into a roar as the news hit — President Donald Trump was pausing the bulk of his tariffs and putting his global trade war on hold. Mostly.
“Is it real?!” said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Everything happened so quick.”
That was the reaction on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as equities soared 7% in a matter of minutes Wednesday afternoon when news started spreading that Trump was partially halting the higher tariffs that hit dozens of America’s trading partners just after midnight.
“Holy crap!” said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, who has worked on the NYSE floor for 35 years. “This was total shock and awe.”
The S&P 500 Index ended the day up 9.5%, its biggest one-day gain since October 2008.
Wall Street had been practically begging for the reprieve, which is scheduled to last 90 days. Trump, however, had been reluctant to mollify anxious traders, even as the S&P 500 Index plunged after his tariff announcement on April 2, briefly falling 20% from its latest high on Monday and Tuesday.
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But by Wednesday, as stocks continued to flip between small gains and losses, it was time for the administration to act. Trump placed a 90-day pause on higher reciprocal tariffs roughly 13 hours after the duties on 56 nations and the European Union went into effect.
“The floor erupted,” Corpina said. “Everyone was shouting ‘What is it?’ ‘What did Bessent say?’ ‘Are tariffs paused?’ We all started yelling out flashes to each other trying to see if it was real.”
But even as the news hit, trepidation remains. The earlier 10% baseline tariffs remain in place, and Trump is escalating his trade fight with China.
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“Crisis averted for now, but what’s next?” Woods said. “Tons of damage has been done in the stock market and we have a long way to recover.”
This is the world market pros are living in. For all the hope generated by Trump’s decision to step back from the precipice of a full-scale trade calamity, there’s still a ton of uncertainty surrounding his plans. In particular, the risk of an outright US-China trade war remains, with China slapping 84% tariffs on US imports in response to Trump’s levies on Chinese goods, which he subsequently raised to 125%.
“We’re relieved — for now — but we’ve seen this all before,” said Corpina, who also has been on the NYSE floor for three decades and witnessed the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. “Anything could flip on a dime on a headline or tweet.”
While some clients were snapping up riskier stocks in the market, he said, others were still piling into defensive, dividend-paying shares because their skepticism remains.
