Stock Market Today: It's the Old Up-Down Again on Liberation Day

smt stocks up and down mixed volatile — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Liberation Day opened with gaps down for the main U.S. equity indexes, though investors, traders and speculators again stepped in to buy. This occurred even without clarity on tariff policy, which is due out after the close.

Incoming economic data provided some support for the risk-on move, but markets remain in uncharted territory with little recent precedent for guidance.

By the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6% to 42,225, the S&P 500 gained 0.7% to 5,670, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.9% to 17,601.

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President Donald Trump's Liberation Day announcement is scheduled for 4 pm Eastern Standard Time. It's all academic until then.

Barron's captured the moment with observations revealed in two headlines: The Rose Garden event will "bring an end to an era of free trade" with "tariffs estimated to reach their highest level since 1946."

That era, according to Cornell University Professor Eswar Prasad, "is coming to a crashing end as the Trump tariffs lead to a surge of protectionist measures around the world."

Prasad, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution who previously led the China Division and the Financial Studies Division at the International Monetary Fund, notes that "even if the tariff wars ease up … corporations around the world are now confronted with a much more uncertain and volatile trade landscape."

Jobs data and factory orders

ADP said private sector employment increased by 155,000 in March, and the payroll processor and data provider revised upward its February growth estimate by 7,000 to 84,000.

The services sector added 132,000 new jobs, manufacturing 24,000. Median annual pay rose 4.6% year over year, down from 4.7% in February.

The Census Bureau reported that factory orders rose 0.6% in February, roughly in line with consensus expectations, and the January growth rate was revised up from 1.7% to 1.8%.

According to Navellier & Associates Chief Investment Officer Louis Navellier, the ADP numbers helped "reduce recession fear today." Navellier also notes that February factory orders were the strongest since December 2023.

"As the trading day continues," Navellier writes, "the VIX has fallen below 22, and all the major indexes have moved slightly into the green."

As Navellier sees it, "Investors appear to have taken the exposure they want to have going into the tariff news. It's an encouraging sign."

Deliveries down, TSLA up

Tesla (TSLA) was down 5% in premarket trading and plunged at the open after the electric vehicle maker said it delivered 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter. Wall Street expected approximately 378,000, though recent estimates were in the range of 360,000.

However, shares closed up 5.3% after Politico reported that President Trump "has told his inner circle … that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man."

Rivian Automotive (RIVN) was down 5.9% after the Tesla competitor reported a 36% year-over-year decline in first-quarter deliveries to 8,640, which was in line with Wall Street expectations.

IPOs are volatile (and value-adding?)

Newsmax (NMAX) spiraled 77.4% on Liberation Day – but that's only after it hit a high as $265 on Tuesday. The shares began trading this past Monday, March 31, after the company priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $10 per share.

And now the cable TV company founded by Christopher Ruddy, a longtime ally of President Trump, is set up to compete with Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) as an era-defining passion-play stock.

For the record, DJT fell 7.4% after the company filed an updated Form S-3 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that enables a trust headed by President Trump to sell a total of approximately $2.3 billion stock in periodic transactions.

According to Trump Media, "These shares were already registered last June on an S-1 form" and the S-3 is "a routine filing … to keep the Company's filings effective." There are no plans for the Trump trust to sell DJT stock at present.

There's a lot of passion involved with these stocks. It's a similar dilemma when it comes to how to invest in sports. You know how to do it. The question is generating a reasonable, tangible rate of return.

NMAX also provides a timely parallel to another recent IPO, CoreWeave (CRWV).

It's not yet one of the best AI stocks to buy, but CRWV was up 16.7% Wednesday following a gain of 41.8% on Tuesday.

Its deep relationship with Nvidia (NVDA, +0.3%) makes its debut a key signpost in the story of the AI revolution (such as it is).

Meanwhile, new research from Renaissance Capital shows that "allocations to new stocks have historically boosted returns and improved risk metrics."

And there's more to come after NMAX and CRWV: Here's a list of hot upcoming IPOs to watch.

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David Dittman is the former managing editor and chief investment strategist of Utility Forecaster, which was named one of "10 investment newsletters to read besides Buffett's" in 2015. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and the Villanova University School of Law, and a former stockbroker, David has been working in financial media for more than 20 years.