U.S. stocks faced volatility after President Trump announced new tariffs on imports in early April. This sparked investor concerns and led to declines across major indices, with the S&P S00 down 0.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 3.1%, and US small caps dropping 2.3%.
Bonds provided stability, as investors sought safer assets amid the volatility. Taxable Bonds rose 0.4%, benefiting from steady Treasury yields. However, Municipal Bonds declined by 0.8%, partly due to higher supply and seasonal selling pressure.
International stocks performed well, with European markets boosted by strong corporate earnings and supportive central bank policies. International Developed went up 4.6%, while Emerging Markets rose 1.3% as investor confidence improved on economic stabilization in China.
Source: Bloomberg -All performance is percentage change of total return
The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index of 500 widely held stocks that is generally considered representative of the U.S. stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), commonly known as “The Dow” is an index representing 30 stock of companies maintained and reviewed by the editors of the Wall Street Journal. The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, which represent approximately 8% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index. The MSCI EAFE (Europe, Australasia, and Far East) is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure developed market equity performance, excluding the United States & Canada. The EAFE consists of the country indices of 22 developed nations. The MSCI Emerging Markets is designed to measure equity market performance in 25 emerging market indices. The index's three largest industries are materials, energy, and banks. Bloomberg US Aggregate (BBAG): The index is a measure of the investment grade, fixed-rate, taxable bond market of roughly 6,000 SEC-registered securities with intermediate maturities averaging approximately 10 years. The index includes bonds from the Treasury, Government-Related, Corporate, MBS, ABS, and CMBS sectors.
Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index: The index is a measure of the long-term tax-exempt bond market with securities of investment grade (rated at least Baa by Moody's Investors Service and BBB by Standard and Poor's). This index has four main sectors: state and local general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, insured bonds, and pre refunded bonds.