How stocks went from panic to record highs in just 6 months

The Street

Longtime NYSE trader Peter Tuchman breaks down the stock market rebound of 2025.

Transcript

00:00So we turned the page on the first half of the year.

00:03We're entering the second half of the year with the S&P 500 near all-time highs.

00:08I think before we really look ahead, let's take a look back.

00:12How did we get here?

00:14You know, I think it would be probably easier if we were to be sitting here on this day

00:18and the market was down 1,000 points and you asked me that same question.

00:22For me to explain how we got here and us being down with all that's gone on over the last six months

00:30than to be where we are today.

00:32You know, no one would have ever, I don't think anyone foresaw this

00:36when we were in the depths of what was quite a really hard end of the first quarter into the second quarter,

00:43meaning the record high on February 19th, which was the first day that Mr. Trump mentioned

00:47the imposition of tariffs on Mexico and Canada down until April 9th,

00:52which was the deep, dark depths of the sell-off that we had, which was more than 20%, you know, at the lows.

01:00I think it would make more sense that we would be down 1,000 points than we would be here trading at record highs.

01:04But, you know, let's look at the last six months.

01:07They've been extraordinary.

01:07I think that a lot of people had anxiety around Mr. Trump,

01:12whether they were a supporter of Mr. Trump or not, around him being a bit of a wild card.

01:16We knew that from the first administration, because if you go back to Trump 101,

01:21okay, the first day that he was in Davos on his first administration,

01:25he mentioned tariffs and China.

01:28And that day, it was 11, I have a photographic memory,

01:30so I'm able to go deep back into the bowels of my mind and remember that on that day,

01:35it was the first mention he had ever done about tariffs and about China.

01:38The market sold off 1,400 points at 11 o'clock in the morning.

01:42By the end of that day, we had regained the 1,400-point loss and rallied 1,400 points.

01:48So there was a 2,800-point swing.

01:50So people who are market trackers already had, you know, we always say we've seen that movie before.

01:56We had seen the movie before of what the effects of him mentioning tariffs

02:00and how his attempt at finding policy can affect on the market.

02:05That first day that he mentioned tariffs and position on Canada and Mexico,

02:10the market sold off 70 points on the S&P incredibly quickly.

02:14And that was the beginning of the descent that took about 11 weeks.

02:18And we ended up being down almost more than 22%, right?

02:21And that was devastating, right, for the market.

02:23I call it, I don't use the word crash very lightly, but I call that a mini crash.

02:28It was aggressive.

02:29It was a lot, and it happened quite quickly.

02:32And it was a function of the way that Mr. Trump, and this is not a political commentary,

02:37the way he disseminates information.

02:39Markets can handle virtually anything.

02:40We've lived through and navigated our way through everything,

02:44from COVID to financial crises to, you know, wars.

02:48But what the markets can't handle is uncertainty and surprises.

02:52And Mr. Trump is just, by nature and by definition, all about uncertainty and surprises.

02:57And so what happened over the next 11 weeks was sort of an erosion of confidence in the market

03:02by the fact that he would sort of throw out a big swath of a, you know,

03:06his negotiating tactic of that we're going to have huge tariffs, 185%, 140%

03:13on numerous countries at the same time.

03:16And then he would pull that back.

03:17So thank you.

03:19Thank you very much.

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