Trump is swaying the market like no president has in decades, analysis shows

By Frances Yue

Data suggest President Trump has been the driver behind the best and worst days for stocks in his second term

The S&P 500 is up 18.5% since President Trump's January 2025 inauguration.

President Trump has been influencing the stock market in a way few other U.S. presidents have, according to equity-market data.

Trump's policies have been the primary driver behind all five of the stock market's best days and all five of its worst days since his second term started in January 2025, Fundstrat concluded in a Thursday report.

That sets the early portion of his second term apart from most presidencies over the past four decades. Specifically, no other president can be pegged as the key driver of this many top five best and worst market days during a single presidency, according to an analysis by Alex Wang, Fundstrat's macro data scientist, who looked at market performance under a dozen presidencies dating back to 1981.

Each bar in the chart below represents 12 unique presidential terms over the past 45 years. The colors of each bar represent distinct catalysts that were identified for the five best and worst days for the S&P 500 SPX; the dark-blue bar represents "U.S. government policy" and was used as a proxy for presidential influence.

"Since President Trump took office, publicly-listed companies have reported blockbuster earnings reports and clocked multiple all-time high stock valuations because of the President's pro-growth agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, energy abundance, and fair trade deals," White House spokesman Kush Desai told MarketWatch.

Under previous administrations, the S&P 500's biggest moves were usually tied to a wider mix of catalysts - including economic data, Federal Reserve decisions, corporate earnings, foreign events, government policies and fears about growth, noted Hardika Singh, an economic strategist at Fundstrat.

Fundstrat's findings suggest Trump's policies - and their reversals - have played an outsize role in driving market volatility, with traders reacting not just to new announcements but also whether the president appeared to be escalating, softening or backing away.

See: How the 'TACO' trade went from a lighthearted Wall Street joke to a serious moneymaker

Trump's freewheeling style of announcing both policies and diatribes on social media initially shattered the norms of the U.S. presidency, but quickly became routine. Since Trump took office for his second term, he has "made up his mind" about tariffs, war with Iran, threatening to fire the Federal Reserve chair and other key issues, Singh wrote in a note on Thursday. Trump also has "changed [his mind], and then changed it again," only to "backtrack later - all a part of his signature 'Art of the Deal' negotiation style."

Investors "better throw out their old market playbooks, because the rules have changed," Singh added.

Since reclaiming the White House, Trump's fingerprints have been especially clear during the market's biggest rally days. The best day for stocks so far during Trump's second presidency came on April 9, 2025, when the S&P 500 rallied 9.5% after he paused his "liberation day" tariffs. The second-best day was tied to trade, with the index rising 3.3% on May 12, 2025, after the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day tariff truce. Last month, the S&P 500 gained 2.9% on March 31, its third-best day of Trump's second term, after the president said he was willing to end the Iran war.

Downside moves were even more concentrated, with all five of the worst days for stocks in Trump's second term tied to tariffs, according to Fundstrat. The S&P 500 fell 4.8% on April 3, 2025, a day after Trump's "liberation day" announcement. It dropped another 6% the following day, after China retaliated with tariffs of its own. And the index fell 3.5% on April 10, 2025, after Trump briefly raised tariffs on China to 145%.

The contrast helps explain why traders may be unsettled even as stocks have risen overall. As shown in Fundstrat's data, the gains have been driven in large part by a few sharp rebound days following policy-driven selloffs. Of note, when excluding the five best days so far in Trump's second presidency, the S&P 500 would be down 2.7% since Inauguration Day, instead of up 18.5%, according to Singh.

The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment for this article.

U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday afternoon, but remained near record territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA ended 0.4% lower, the S&P 500 lost 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP fell 0.9%.

-Frances Yue

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04-23-26 1809ET