The ever-volatile stock market bounced Monday as investors once again tilted toward the notion President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t be quite as bad as first thought, with the latest rally led by the big technology stocks worst hit by the tariff-related market pullback, including Tesla, which had its best day on Wall Street in more than four months.
Stocks gained Monday on a reported tariff reprieve.
The S&P 500 rose 1.7% by late Monday afternoon, hitting its highest level since March 7.
The U.S. equity benchmark is now up 4% from its six-month intraday low set March 13, though it remains 6% below its all-time high recorded in February.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.4%, or more than 570 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.2%, as both indexes hit their highest levels in two weeks.
The rally came thanks to “easing trade war angst” on Wall Street, explained Sevens Report founder Tom Essaye, referencing Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal’s weekend reports that Trump’s reciprocal tariffs set to go into effect next week will be far more focused in nature than Trump previously suggested.
Further fueling the comeback was Trump’s afternoon comments suggesting he may give “a lot of countries breaks” from his looming reciprocal tariffs.
The most notable gainers during the Monday jump were the “magnificent seven” big American technology stocks. Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla all gained, led by Tesla’s near 11% surge. Monday is on track to be Tesla’s best day since Nov. 6, the day after Trump won a second term, when investors flooded into the company run by Trump deputy Elon Musk. The septet has struggled badly to open 2025 due to the more acute impact of tariffs and the rotation into safer assets, and Tesla remains the S&P’s second-biggest loser year-to-date even after the early week bounce. Even after gaining 2% on Monday, Bloomberg’s magnificent seven index is down about 12% in 2025.
$80 billion. That’s about how much market capitalization Tesla added Monday, roughly twice Ford’s total valuation.
Musk got about $15 billion richer during Monday’s Tesla surge, pushing his net worth to a world-leading $349 billion, according to our latest estimates. Musk’s fortune is still $115 billion below its December peak.
In another signal of improving risk appetite, bitcoin prices rose to their highest level since March 7, trading above $88,000. That’s a roughly 15% jump from the world’s largest cryptocurrency’s March low.
Over the last two months, the stock market has been highly volatile, often swinging due to the latest developments regarding Trump’s plans for his wide-sweeping tariffs. Trump said Friday the reciprocal tariffs he touts as his driving economic policy will have "flexibility," as he signals that batch of tariffs will begin to roll out next Wednesday. Reciprocal tariffs seek to charge the same duty on imported goods as the same class of American goods face in the imports’ countries of origin. Significant confusion about when the reciprocal tariffs will go into place and what effective rate different goods will face contributed to increased concerns the U.S. may dip into a recession, and the Federal Reserve warned last week it expects higher inflation and lower economic growth this year due to economic uncertainty.