Monday was a God-awful session for equity benchmarks around the world.
By “God-awful” I mean among the worst days in history for a variety of gauges, including the MSCI Asia Pacific index, which closed on the lows and plunged more than 8%.
It’s important to note that this was a catch-up trade (or a catch down trade, if you like) to Wall Street’s harrowing Friday slide, so it needn’t necessarily presage additional large losses for US shares (futures were well off their worst levels prior to the cash open). But my goodness, the bleeding was gratuitous.
There’s the AsiaPac gauge. We’re talking about GFC-style declines here, and it’s hard to blame markets for recoiling. Hold that thought.
China was coming off a long weekend, so everyone knew the drawdown would be even more pronounced there, particularly considering the extent to which Donald Trump’s trade war (which we now know is every bit the mind-bogglingly quixotic pasquinade his most ardent critics feared) is focused on driving down America’s deficit with Beijing.
Still — i.e., even in the context of expectations for outsized losses — the carnage was remarkable, where that means Monday was tied with October 27, 2008, for the worst session in history for H-shares, which plunged 14%. It was a Quentin Tarantino film over there.
The Hang Seng had its second-worst day ever, and the tech gauge (which counts China’s homegrown behemoths as its largest constituents) dropped by — get this — 17%. And no, that’s not a typo. Big Chinese tech just plunged 17% in a single day.
On the Mainland it was bad too. The CSI 300 dove 7%, matching the stimulus disappointment collapse in October and on par (or nearly on par) with the infamous re-opening crash on February 3, 2020 (when the CCP was trying to put the COVID genie back in the lantern).
I assume China’s “national team” (the collection of state-linked vehicles which buy local shares to stabilize markets during routs) was active, so it’s fair to suggest the losses would’ve been even more pronounced absent intervention.
As the figure shows, excluding October 9, 2024 and February 3, 2020, you have to go back to the mid-2015 bubble unwind to find comparably bad sessions for Mainland shares.
It’s worth noting that some of what you’re seeing — and this is almost certainly true of gold’s late-week plunge on April 4 — is evidence of folks selling winners to raise cash and meet margin calls.
The DAX was among the biggest global equity winners in 2025 on bets tied to Berlin’s fiscal pivot. On Monday, German equities fell 10% at one juncture. Read that again and consider: The DAX isn’t the Hang Seng Tech index. We’re talking about a developed market benchmark here, and it was down double-digits in a single session at the lows.
German shares pared losses, but were still down 12% in three days, a slide which pushed one of the world’s best-performing stock benchmarks YTD into negative territory for 2025. The only precedent for the DAX’s Monday losses at the worst levels was COVID.
All in all, global shares have shed something on the order of $10 trillion in market cap over the past three days alone.
I realize I’m preaching to the proverbial choir here, and yes, I realize it’s repetitious even among the converts, but I want to emphasize what’s driving these losses. There are two main problems. Here they are:
- No one knows what US trade policy’s going to be tomorrow, let alone a month from now or a year from now. It’s totally unpredictable from minute to minute, and that’s just death for businesses large, small and everyone in-between.
- The world’s astounded — flabbergasted — by the stupidity on display in that cursedly asinine “formula” Trump forced the USTR to release last week. He’s enshrined a factually inaccurate read on global trade into official US government policy.
If there were any doubts — any at all — about whether this is a “wink, wink“-type of deal where Trump’s not as moronic as he’s letting on, he dispensed with them on Sunday evening when he said this to reporters: “[Other countries] are dying to make a deal and I said, ‘We’re not going to have deficits with your country.’ We’re not going to do that, because to me a deficit is a loss.'”
A deficit isn’t “a loss.” It’s just not. Again: That’s factually inaccurate, and everyone knows it, which is why everyone’s so damn terrified.
Amen.
It’s not only factually moronic it is theoretically and politically moronic. Even the self centered egotistical Musk agrees. My blood pressure skyrockets every time I see the anti-hero moronic trio (Lutnick, Bessent and Trump) on TV.
I can’t even see straight when Navarro spouts his nonsense. He is not even a moron. He should be committed for his own safety. I can’t even speak about his press secretary who should be so lucky as to find a job as a Walmart greeter once this is done.
I was listening to Peter Navarro on CNBC this morning and it was infuriating. This guy is clearly the main character behind this madness and as long as he holds Trump’s ear, we are F*****!
Since he went to jail for Trump, I don’t see how Trump could turn on him.
So again, we are f*****!
Even Bill Ackman is having second thoughts.
Musk is starting to whine.
Hard to think Tesla China won’t be twisting in the wind before long.
Amazed you haven’t brought back a “Peter Navarro greatest hits” column. 2018/2019 Navarro were peak Navarro
What the hell just happened; a 5% change in maybe 15 mins?
Report WH considering 90 day pause on tariffs
WH denies report
WH threatens add’l 50% tariffs on China if latter d/n w/draw 34% retaliatory tariffs
Yes, thanks, the report was out hours before but I guess it was suddenly picked up by some people.
Incredible to threaten an additional 50% overnight. I wonder what the senior republicans are doing right now; will they have a chat with Trump tonight or do they just shrug and go home. Play another game of golf.
The only upside of Trump threatening another 50% is that, in my view, it increases the chances that this will come to a head one way or another within days, not weeks.
Hey, I learned a new word today! Pasquinade: a satire or lampoon, originally one displayed or delivered publicly in a public place. Very apt.
In response to the comments lamenting Peter Navarro’s role in all of this – we have equally stupid/crazy people in charge of our national security as well. Sleep tight!
Let’s go with lampoon at this point. Satire has been murdered. That Navarro was on TV last week was the tell, that this was going to be an utter sh!tshow.
Anything SNL does at this point is a hat on a hat.
Even more alarming now is that treasuries are behaving like junk bonds.
For all the people that are now regretting having voted for Trump, I have no sympathy whatsoever.