Analysts: Trump administration's "bad math" sparks market fears

Wall Street's fear index surged on Thursday as investors were alarmed by Trump's historic tariff hike. While U.S. stocks and blue-chip stocks such as Apple tumbled, the VIX Volatility Index, also known as the "fear gauge," surged 30 percent, heading for its biggest one-day gain since the Fed-fueled sell-off in December. "The market thinks it's not just bad economics, it's bad math," said Michael Bullock, a market strategist at ThirtySeven Capital. Bullock noted that the way the Trump administration calculates reciprocal tariffs appears dubious. "They ignore every rule of classic microeconomics and macroeconomics. This is the policy making equivalent of a suicide bomb." Liz Ann Sanders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said that in the past many investors had assumed that Mr. Trump was merely using tariffs as a negotiating tool. "Now the market is saying, wait, this is really happening. We should take him at his word," Ms. Sanders said. "Yesterday, we were not liberated from uncertainty," she said, referring to what Mr. Trump called "Liberation Day."