Retirement worries grow as seniors face Trump tariffs, stock selloff
Retired educator and part-time yoga instructor Vicki Knight says she feels stretched thin. “I’m semi-retired.” The Marietta, Georgia, resident says her Social Security income is not enough to live on and that a recent stock market selloff fueled by tariff uncertainty has complicated her plans.
The stock market continued to trend low last week and opened low on Monday, May 5, as news of more tariffs came over the weekend from President Donald Trump and Warren Buffett’s decision to step down from his company.
While many stocks and the market saw a dip after the opening bell on Monday, by midday the blue chip Dow was in the green. The S&P 500 on the other hand continued to be in the red, despite closing on a high note last week and marking a winning streak with nine consecutive days of gains.
The turnaround prompted Trump to take credit for the stock market change, even after the turmoil it has been in since the announcement of mass tariffs and the tit-for-tat trade war, which is still going on, with China.
Here’s a look at what is happening in the stock market, outlooks and more.
Where did the stock market open on Monday, May 5?
Stocks opened low to start the first full week in May. Here’s where the market hit around 9 a.m. CT/10 a.m. ET on Monday, May 5.
- Blue-chip Dow fell 0.41%, or 167.38 points, to 41,150.05
- Broad S&P 500 declined 0.71%, or 40.26 points, to 5,646.41
- Tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.68%, or 122.03 points, to 17,855.70
- 10-year yield edged up to 4.322%
More Trump tariffs: President targets foreign movies
Trump’s March 4 announcement of a 100% tariff on movies produced outside of the United States sent movie streaming services’ stock into a dive in the Monday market.
Netflix marked a drop in shares by 1.21% by midday Monday after the announcement.
The question now is just how the president expects to levy this type of tariff.
How much has the stock market fallen since Trump took office?
After the November 2024 election, the stock market hit an all-time high rising more than 4% between Trump’s win and his inauguration, with conservative media pundits claiming that it showed the promise of a prosperous economy during Trump’s second term in office.
Since Trump took office, the stock market has taken a tumble, falling even further after his tariffs announcement. The Dow and S&P 500 were more than 6% below where they stood on Election Day, and tech-heavy Nasdaq is down more than 11%.
And though the stock market has made an uptick in recent weeks since the tariff announcements, it has yet to rebound to Inauguration Day numbers.
The stock market and Trump’s first 100 days
USA TODAY graphed out how stocks tumbled since Trump took office.
How is the economy under Trump right now?
In a “Meet the Press” interview that aired May 4, Trump sees the things going right in the economy as a win for him, but anything seen as “wrong” has to do with former President Joe Biden’s leadership.
“It partially is right now,” Trump said when asked when the economy becomes his. “And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job.”
Trump’s theory comes after the U.S. gross domestic product shrank at a 0.3% annual rate in the first three months of the year.
USA TODAY contributed to this story.
