A volatile month draws to a close

The relief rally, if that’s what it is, continues as the S&P 500 notched its sixth consecutive day of gains. We are now 100 days into the Trump regime, and despite the wave of optimism with which financial markets greeted him during that period, the world’s leading index has lost around 7%, according to a Bloomberg report. Trump’s first 100 days have been marked by one of the worst stock market performances since Richard Nixon’s abbreviated second term. 

The report goes on to point out that the first 100 days have a habit of dictating the path for market returns over the term of office. Since before the start of the last century, during the 12 times that the stock market was down in a president’s first 100 days, the average total return during a four-year term was 12%. In the 20 instances when markets were up in the first 100 days, the total return averaged 44%.

As another month of 2025 draws to a close, the months seem to pass by just a little faster each year, and the panic that embraced the market at the start of April seems to have subsided. The rally from the lows of the start of the month has been supported by a robust earnings season, as investors hope that the impact of additional tariffs may not hurt company profits as much as feared.

The next couple of days will likely test investor sentiment as the latest monthly Personal and Consumption Expenditure index is released. The market is forecasting a significant drop from 2.8% to 2.5%. If that is the case, it will boost the market’s hope for a rate cut, maybe in May and almost certainly in June. Over the next couple of days, we will get the results of the Global Purchasing Manager Surveys, and then on Friday, the latest US jobs data, which will again influence economic and interest rate sentiment. It’s hard to see what drives markets back to the heights of a few months ago, but we shall see.