Editor’s note: This article was originally published April 7 and has been updated with the latest market information.
Stock, bond and commodity ETFs were mixed Wednesday, with S&P 500 funds like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) rebounding into the green after four days of declines and a tumble into bear market territory, while Treasury prices fell as investors try to make sense of President Donald Trump’s tariff war.
The biggest U.S. exchange-traded funds, including VOO, the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY) and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), which together hold more than $1.5 trillion in assets (or more than 10% of the entire ETF market), rose for the first day in four. They fell around 12% over the past four sessions and lost nearly 20% since the February all-time high.
Safe-haven ETFs dipped Wednesday: The $124.1 billion iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) and the $127.3 billion Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND) fell, while the $45.6 billion SPDR Bloomberg 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL) was unchanged.
Market volatility Monday had surged to its highest since the 2020 pandemic, as measured by the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) and remained at those high on Wednesday. In a sign of how itchy investors’ trigger fingers have become, the market briefly soared mid-morning Monday, turning positive following reports—which were later disavowed—that tariffs would be paused for 90 days.
Trump’s threat of another 50% tariff on China rattled markets further on Monday, and he followed through with it Tuesday evening.
“The name of the game now is uncertainty across the board with investors,” said Tim Urbanowicz, CFA, chief investment strategist at Innovator ETFs, likening the current environment to that of the pandemic meltdown. “The uncertainty is not going away. We don’t think it’s peaked yet.”
Investors traded around $850 million in so-called buffer ETFs on Friday, he said. Those funds hedge against volatility by limiting their losses and gains. Innovator is telling investors to be prepared for a “wide range of outcomes,” he said.
Source: etf.com data
Market screens were a sea of red Monday, with few investments gaining. Beyond those rare green signs, investors found few places of refuge.
“Today, we feel bewildered, angry and shocked,” Allan Roth, etf.com columnist and founder of financial planning firm Wealth Logic, wrote in an email. “I agree with the sentiment that this is ‘a self-inflicted wound.’”
On Wednesday, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) moved 1.9% higher along with the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which added 2% midday.