(Bloomberg) -- It was just after 10 a.m., a half hour after the opening bell, and the S&P 500 Index had started to steady from the fear-induced selloff that swept across Wall Street on Monday.

Then President Donald Trump took to Truth Social and fired off another broadside in his trade spat with Canada, jolting traders and sending stocks lurching downward again.

“No one is blinking on the trade war yet and that’s troubling to our clients,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. “The market thought Trump was bluffing. Now we’re living through the difficulties of it.”

Just 50 days into Trump’s second presidency, a new reality seems to be settling in: The billionaire reality star who has promoted his own gospel of wealth — and during his first term predictably watched the stock market as a barometer of his success — isn’t concerned this time around. In fact, it seems like he may be willing to sacrifice the bull market — and, in the short-term, even the growth of the economy itself — to upend a global order he says has served America poorly for decades.

“Senior leaders are talking about transition periods and that is making people very nervous,” R.J. Grant, global head of equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus. “It seems like there’s going to be more pain before we have better growth again. This is all bleeding into the market.”

It’s made for a dizzying spell for traders who’d ridden the artificial-intelligence euphoria and swelling corporate profits to one of the strongest runs since the 1990s internet boom.

In just a few short weeks, it’s given way to a virtually non-stop churn of volatility fueled by the chaotic rollout of Trump’s plans in all-capped social media posts or television appearances. Tuesday was no different: By late afternoon — as stocks pared losses on the prospects of a cease fire in Ukraine — Trump said he was reconsidering the Canadian tariff hikes he called for just a few hours earlier.

Some have even turned to gallows humor to deal with the exhausting back-and-forth: “I should have listened to my mother and become a doctor,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director of the Wealth Alliance.

Peter Tchir, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities, sees Tuesday’s choppy session as little reprieve. “I’m treating this like the Great Financial Crisis or European debt crisis,” he said. “I think we get a chance to have a small bounce, but I’m beginning to think we might have 20% downside from here.”

That caution has been steadily seeping through the market, driving investors toward havens like short-term Treasuries and stocks of utilities, consumer-staples companies and others that tend to do well when the economy slows.

So far, the economy itself has generally been holding up even as the administration’s policies take a toll on business and consumer confidence. Last Friday, the Labor Department reported that payrolls continued to expand at decent pace, and job openings have also ticked up.

But as Trump’s tariffs cast uncertainty over major industries in the US — and threaten to deal the economy another shock — traders have been rapidly recalibrating.

‘Clients Are Confused’

JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America and president of tastytrade, the online brokerage firm under IG Group, said the firm has been deluged with questions from clients, especially younger investors more accustomed to market ups than downs.

“Clients are confused,” he said. “Even professional traders are struggling right now with all the constant changes related to the tariff shifts.”

That continued to play out Tuesday right down to the closing bell. The S&P 500 briefly erased its loss after Ukraine said it was ready to accept a US proposal for a temporary truce in the Russia war. But it wasn’t able to hold the advance and ended with another loss on the day.

“Now obviously there’s a headline every 15 minutes — that is a bit scary,” said Brian Frank, president and portfolio manager at Frank Funds. “With the market action how it is, even the strongest of clients doesn’t like to see the market down a lot.”

--With assistance from Elena Popina.