April 5, 2025

Wall Street nosedived for a second straight day on Friday, confirming the Nasdaq Composite was in a bear market and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was in a correction, as an escalating global trade war spurred the biggest losses since the pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq Composite posted their largest two-day declines since the coronavirus caused global panic during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term. For Thursday and Friday, the Dow was down 9.3 percent, the S&P 500 10.5 percent and the Nasdaq 11.4 percent.

Fallout from Trump's sweeping tariffs stoked fears of a global recession, wiping trillions of dollars of value from U.S. companies. Highlighting growing panic among investors, the CBOE Volatility Index, or Wall Street's fear gauge, closed at its highest level since April 2020.

Read more: