Trump Postpones Tariffs for 90 Days: Are The Markets Going To Soar?

Yesterday, the American stock market roller coaster managed to shine once again in all its beauty. US President Donald Trump declared that all tariffs against all countries, that did not respond to the US’s trade aggression, will be postponed by 90 days, which can be used for a “diplomatic solution”.

The only country that has an overall US tariff level higher than the global 10% now is China, the second biggest economy in the world. Here, tariffs soared to a ridiculous 125%, after Trump said in a post on X that China has been “unrespectful”, and for this reason, he is punishing it.

In our post on April 7, we wrote that a technical rebound is healthy even for a bear market, as the US stock market was heavily oversold after losing more than 26% from the ATH. Here's the pullback we've been anticipating – though the magnitude of the move surprised us just as much as it did other analysts, retail traders, and even institutions.

As a result of the subsequent wild ride, the NASDAQ-100 gained +12.16% in a day – the strongest market rise since 2008. 

XBRUSD also proceeded higher, stopping at $65/b, just after reaching yearly lows at $58/b.

XAUUSD, however, remains the main beneficiary of the illogical and contradictory White House’s stream of decisions on trade policy. The precious metal jumped higher by +3.38% yesterday and already +1.27% by 09:30 MT Time today. The old ATH of $3167/oz is now within reach. Our long target, described in this Week’s Market Overview ($3100/oz) has been reached and surpassed.

But what happens now? 

While yesterday’s one-day bull market looks like the end of the fall, it is too soon to say if that’s true. You see, such big and volatile moves might be the norm for some illiquid stock market of a still developing country, where the retail investors’ component is dominant and the crowd pushes the market up and down at every news event.

This, however, should not be the case for the most liquid market in the world, where a 2% gain or loss for the day may be the norm, but a 3-6% movement is something pretty out of the ordinary. The quickness of last week’s market moves suggests that the bear market has not ended at all. It has just started, and it is developing like it always has in the historical perspective.

Take a look at the worst market crashes in the last 25 years. 

Let’s start with the 2001 Dot-com bubble. It started with a vertical -32% crash, with almost no rebound. After hovering around 3,179 - 3,100 points, it shot back up by 36%, to 4,070 points. After consolidating and drawing a double top, the market crashed lower by -47,87%, after bouncing again… and then slowly hemorrhaging, losing 80% since the first dead-cat bounce.

Then look at the 2008 chart – the subprime mortgage bonds crisis and the real estate market crash that followed. -12% at first, then first bounce. Then again -22%, followed by a strong upside movement of +23%. Then, the NASDAQ-100 lost 50% from June to November 2008.

The 2020 market crash looked different. It had no rebound, but because the causes of the crisis were different – a global pandemic, not a bubble of excessive speculation origins.

If you think that all of this happened only in recent history, you are mistaken. Take the 1929 Great Depression market crash. Look at the S&P (US500) crash in September 1929 or the Nikkei crash in December 1989. It is always the same story:

1. A strong bearish fall.
2. A small consolidation (look at the yellow arc on the NASDAQ-100 pictures)
3. Another strong fall.
4. An overwhelmingly bullish rebound (dead-cat bounce)
5. Another crash and slow market hemorrhage over the next months.

The anatomy of a market crash is a recurrent pattern that has happened and will happen again many times during the history of financial markets. The psychological aspect is always the same: “New Paradigm”!!!, Denial, Bull trap, Return to “normal”, Fear, Capitulation, Despair, Return to the normal.

In 2025, the NASDAQ-100 went through the “New Paradigm” phase, with the hopes stoked by the Trump rally, the Denial phase – where market participants understood that Trump won’t bring growth, and the bull trap – with yesterday’s +12% rise.

We have returned to normal, have we?

p.s. Warren Buffet still sits on a $300 billion cash pile…

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