A falsely reported update on President Trump's tariff policy set the stage Monday for one of the strangest trading sessions in recent memory.
Shortly after the opening bell, the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) was down nearly 5%. Within 30 minutes, it was up 3% as confusion emerged over whether President Trump was considering a 90-day pause on his tariff rollout.
As the White House refuted the reports , stocks lost those gains.
"No signal, lots of noise," Citi analyst Stuart Kaiser said in a note to clients following Monday's close. "At the edges, tariff negotiation headlines and a noisy-flat day are incremental positives."
Read more: The latest news and updates on Trump's tariffs
Markets finished the day off their session lows, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) climbing into the green by late afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) shed around 350 points, while the S&P dropped 0.2%. All three of the major averages had opened the day down more than 3%.
Chris Watling, chief market strategist at Longview Economics, told Yahoo Finance on Friday that the recent sizable intraday moves signal the market "wants to rally."
"Give it a sniff of something that's good news, and whoosh, off you go," he said. "There's a lot of downside protection in this market, a lot of fear ... That is a very, very big move in a very short period of time. So it's indicative of the way the market is positioned."
Headlines that White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Trump would consider the pause on tariffs caused the immediate surge in stocks — until it became clear that he didn't actually say that.
"I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide," Hassett said in an interview with Fox News when asked specifically if Trump would consider a 90-day pause. Shortly after the comments, stocks sold off once again before paring losses by mid-afternoon.
The White House later described the initial headlines on the pause as "fake news" in a series of posts on X, making clear to investors that the Trump administration is not backing down on implementing reciprocal tariffs on April 9. Trump himself confirmed such a stance while speaking at the White House on Monday.
"Well, we're not looking at [a pause in tariffs]," Trump told reporters after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and they're going to be fair deals, and in certain cases, they're going to be paying substantial tariffs."
Separately, Trump posted on Truth Social that "if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th.
The confluence of headlines led to a confusing day for investors. A rally in some Big Tech names helped the major indexes close well off their lows of the day. Nvidia ( NVDA ) rose more than 4%, while Amazon ( AMZN ) and Meta ( META ) rallied roughly 3%.
On a sector basis, Information Technology ( XLK ) and Communication Services ( XLC ) were the lone S&P 500 sectors to close in the green. The worst performers were Real Estate ( XLRE ), Materials ( XLB ), and Utilities ( XLU ), which each fell around 2%.
With uncertainty top of mind, action in the bond market flipped on its head.
The 10-year Treasury yield ( ^TNX ) had fallen more than 20 basis points in the prior two sessions as Trump's tariffs sparked fears the US economy may be heading for recession. On Monday, a bond market sell-off sent the 10-year up about 17 basis points, nearly in line with levels seen prior to Trump's tariff announcements on April 3.
Alexandra Canal and Josh Schafer are Senior Reporters at Yahoo Finance.
