A number of media and tech stocks suddenly leaped higher on Wednesday afternoon, after President Trump stunned Wall Street by announcing a 90-day pause on tariffs for countries that are currently negotiating with the U.S. on new trade deals.
Comcast and Netflix enjoyed big jumps on Wednesday, with each company seeing its share price increase more than 7%, while WB Discovery’s stock price surged 20.62% by the time markets closed. Apple, meanwhile, increased 15.33% to about $199 per share — a welcome sight for investors in the world’s most valuable company, after it shed nearly $1 trillion from its market cap over the last four trading days.
“I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” the president posted on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The announcement sent the three major indexes soaring higher, with the S&P 500 up 9.52%, the Dow Jones up 7.87%, and the Nasdaq up 12.62% by the time trading ended on Wednesday. It was the largest single-day percentage jump for the tech-heavy Nasdaq since 2001 and its second-largest ever, while the S&P 500 had its biggest day since 2008, per CNBC.
Other tech and media stocks that are up big include:
Fox Corp.: +8.56%
News Corp.: +9.22%
Roku: +15.90%
Amazon: +11.98%
Meta: +14.76%
Simultaneously, President Trump said he was increasing the tariff against China to 125% — hours after a new 104% tariff against Chinese goods went into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
The jump for the three major indexes comes after brutal stretch for Wall Street bulls, following the president’s unveiling of his “liberation day” tariff plan last week. Overall, the downturn was the sharpest Wall Street had experienced since COVID-19 rocked the markets in March 2020.
Earlier on Wednesday, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had warned a recession was “likely” if the new tariff plan remained in place, echoing the fears many other business bigwigs and Wall Street analysts have shared in the past week.
That sentiment appeared to suddenly shift on Wednesday afternoon, with prominent hedge fund manager Bill Ackman lauding the president on X.
“This was brilliantly executed by @RealDonaldTrump,” Ackman posted. “Textbook, Art of the Deal.”
President Trump, as markets opened earlier in the day, urged Americans to “BE COOL!” on Truth Social, saying “everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
He then added moments later “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY,” followed by three exclamation points.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said countries were “falling over themselves” to make deals with the U.S. Trump, in his Truth Social post on Wednesday, said more than 75 countries had reached out about making trade deals.
