Wall Street’s Cold Shower: Trump’s First 100 Days Delivered Worst Stock Performance Since Nixon Era

Markets don’t lie—unless you’re a politician spinning quarterly reports. CFRA data reveals the 45th president’s opening act rattled equities harder than any White House since Watergate.

Forget trickle-down economics—this was a flash crash of confidence. The S&P 500’s lackluster response to corporate tax cuts proved investors prefer stability over political theater.

Funny how ’making markets great again’ didn’t include telling shareholders about the coming volatility. Maybe someone should’ve YOLO’d into Bitcoin instead.

CFRA claims Trump’s first 100 days are the second worst for the S&P 500

Ouch. The S&P 500 is down about 8% since Trump’s inauguration — on pace for the worst first 100 days for a president since Gerald Ford took office after Nixon resigned in 1974. pic.twitter.com/MWkKrZlPKg

— Mike Levin (@MikeLevin) April 28, 2025

According to CFRA’s data, the S&P 500 climbed 3.7% from Election Day to Inauguration Day before the rally sputtered and then dove sharply as Trump used his early days in office to push forth other campaign promises that investors took less seriously. 

Luca Bindelli, head of investment strategy at Lombard Odier, said policy under Trump is even more unpredictable than during his first term in office, thanks to daily messaging that felt either uncoordinated or flip-flopped, making equity markets very difficult to navigate on a short-term basis. 

“Everyone had ‘Trump 1.0’ in mind when we had stimulation followed by a trade war, but it turns out under Trump 2.0 that this template was back to front, and what we got was a trade war before any stimulus – markets are still waiting for the good news.”

–Luca Bindelli, Head of Investment Strategy at Lombard Odier

Trump’s return to office even leaves Gerald Ford’s rise to power in 1974, after Richard Nixon’s resignation due to Watergate, in a positive light. In just 92 days, Trump’s approval rating fell nearly 24 points below Biden’s rating at the same point in his term. He even worsened his own 2017 record when he was five points higher.

Trump triggers the collapse of global stock markets with ‘Liberation Day’

AJ Bell noted that global stock markets plunged in the wake of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, wiping $8.6 trillion (£6.4 trillion) off the value of indices worldwide. The loss reduced to about $1 trillion since Trump announced a 90-day suspension on most of his tariffs on April 9.

According to Goldman Sachs, Bank of America strategists warned on Friday that the conditions for a sustained stock market rebound were missing and encouraged investors to sell into the most recent rebound in U.S. equities and the dollar. Foreign investors have already received the memo and have been dumping American shares since the start of March.

David Lefkowitz, head of US equities at UBS’s global wealth management arm, said he expects profits for S&P 500 companies to be flat this year. He added that a tariff-induced slowdown in economic activity and the associated higher costs will crimp earnings growth.

Eric Sterner, chief investment officer at Apollon Wealth, also said the world needed to get past this cloud of trade policy uncertainty as it is holding back businesses from capital expenditures and hiring plans and may also dampen consumer spending.

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