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HomeMarket NewsUS Market Crash: How S&P 500 lost $2 trillion in market cap in less than 20 minutes
Between 4:25 PM and 4:42 PM Eastern Time, the S&P 500 futures lost nearly $125 billion per minute in market capitalisation, leading to an overall erosion of $2 trillion post Donald Trump's reciprocal tariff announcements.
By Hormaz Fatakia April 3, 2025, 6:31:41 AM IST (Published)
The S&P 500 lost $2 trillion in market capitalisation in a matter of less than 20 minutes as US President Donald Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on as many as 60 countries on Wednesday evening.
The S&P 500 futures are currently down 3.6% on Thursday, April 3, Indian time, a far cry from the resilience showcased by Wall Street over the last few trading sessions.
This resilience came on account of hopes that Donald Trump's promised reciprocal tariffs will be lesser than feared. The President himself hinted at multiple occasions that he will be "lenient" to his trading partners, despite them not reciprocating the same when it comes to imposing tariffs on US imports.
Before Donald Trump began his tariff address, the S&P 500 had ended higher in regular trading and futures were trading higher by 1.7% at 4:25 PM Eastern Time.
Just then, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick handed over the tariff details to Trump, who began reading out the list country-by-country. Futures began to fall during Trump's speech and by 4:42 PM Eastern Time, they had wiped out nearly $2 trillion in market capitalisation.
That amounts to an erosion of nearly $125 billion per minute.
The Dow futures also collapsed nearly 1,100 points post Trump's announcements. The Nasdaq futures are down close to 5%.
