The S&P 500 Is Having Its Worst Start for a President Ever

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President Trump’s election last November sparked a stock market rally that continued through mid-February until the reality of his promised trade war began to take shape. Since then, it’s mostly been a steady slide lower with some sharp and dramatic dips along the way.

From its peak two months ago, the S&P 500 index recently dipped into correction territory, losing 14% of its value. The decline is taking on some historic proportions. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, the benchmark index is headed towards its worst April showing since 1932. CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten says “Trump is on a planet all by himself” with the market’s decline since Trump inauguration being the worst of any president going all the way back to the index’s inception in 1957.

A snapshot in time

While there has been a lot of rending of shirts and gnashing of teeth over the market’s performance, it’s important to remember these are just slices of moments in time. Had the analysts checked in at the February peak, they would have been reporting a different story. In a few more weeks or months, it could be a different one too.

The S&P 500 actually hit its low point earlier this month when it bottomed at an intraday 4,835, before closing over 200 points higher. The index has since gained almost 13%. On Tuesday, it was up 129 points, or 2.5%, and in morning trading on Wednesday, the S&P is rallying 3% higher, or another 163 points. 

What it means is snapshots of any particular point could be giving you a skewed view of the situation.

Planned chaos

There is a theory the market crash is a calculated move by Trump to force the Federal Reserve’s hand in cutting taxes to help stimulate the economy. The President has been highly critical of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, recently calling him “Mr. Too Late.”

Noting on his social media company’s site Truth Social that because prices for energy and food were significantly lower since his inauguration, and the cost of other items were trending lower, “there is virtually No Inflation.”

That would normally have the Fed cutting interest rates from their historically high level, but Powell has been reluctant to move forward with them.

Much like the shock therapy of dramatically hiking tariffs on all of the U.S.’s trading partners was calculated to force European leaders and others to the negotiating table to lower their barriers to entry of U.S. goods, a market crash was gauged to make the Fed to act sooner.

Laying the groundwork for recovery

Ark Invest‘s Cathie Wood recently wrote, “Even before the tariff controversy, we had been expecting strong growth to begin sometime in the second half, because we do believe that the last leg of a three-year rolling recession will result in negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the first and second quarters.”

Wood goes on to say that with the first recession in 30 years looming, “the Administration and the Federal Reserve will have more degrees of freedom to stimulate than most investors have been expecting.” Deregulation, tax cuts, and lower interest rates are on the horizon.

Timing is everything, though. From a political standpoint, Trump would likely prefer the crash to come early, so that a rebound could occur ahead of next year’s midterm elections. A practical view would also argue a one-and-done reset on valuations and interest rates is preferable to dragging the pain out longer.

A bull market in the making

The S&P 500 scaled to all-time highs on inflated valuations of Magnificent Seven stocks like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which all sit on average 16% below where they started 2025.

Yet if the tariff situation gets mostly resolved, which investors are hopeful will happen soon, and interest rates get cut, which a recession might spur, we could be on the cusp of the benchmark index launching into the next bull market sooner rather than later.

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