Earlier in the week, Trump introduced general 25-percent import tariffs on goods and services from Mexico and Canada.
On Wednesday, Trump announced that the tariffs affecting three major American car manufacturers would be put on hold for a month.
That caused the New York Stock Exchange to rise and recover some of the losses from earlier in the week.
Then came Thursday, with the announcement that all tariffs against Mexico on goods within USMCA – the North American free trade agreement negotiated with Canada and Mexico during Trump's previous term – would be postponed until April 2.
As soon as the decision was made, the three major indexes were already in the minus, but the downward trend continued even after Trump's announcement.
By 18:30 Swedish time, the Dow Jones industrial index had fallen 1.3 percent, the broad S&P 500 index 1.9 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index 2.4 percent.
Keith Lerner points out, just like many others, that markets generally abhor uncertainty – and that's exactly what has been created recently.
This confusion permeates the daily fluctuations on the market.
