Karishma Vanjani

Mondays are hard enough already. The stock market has made them worse.

After a tough last week, when the S&P 500 suffered its biggest decline since September, the index opened with a loss of over 1% this Monday. It is a painful decline but one that is becoming all too familiar: Since President Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, investors now have weathered three Mondays that opened with over 1% in losses -- one in January, February, and March. In all three instances, the index finished the day with a loss. This Monday, it dropped 2.7%.

A rough Monday open isn't as common as one might think. In all of 2024, investors saw just two such Mondays and just one in all of 2023, Bespoke Investment highlighted it in its note.

During Trump's first presidency, the market didn't start with a decline of 1% or more on a Monday until 836 days into his term on May 2019. In all of Trump's first presidency, there were 10 such Mondays, and seven of them came during the thick of the pandemic in 2020, the Dow Jones market data team calculated for Barron's.

"The stock market so far during Trump 2.0 looks a lot different than the stock market in the early days of Trump 1.0.," the co-founder of Bespoke, Justin Walters, wrote. The stock market has declined 6.4% in the first 50 days of Trump versus the 4.8% gain seen in his first term.

The market has ailed with concerns of a U.S. recession as tariffs get imposed, suspended and resumed. Wall Street once viewed them as a political negotiation tool, but with retaliations from China and Canada, that narrative has largely faded. Tariff threaten to fan inflation further at a time when consumers still reel from price pressures, according to many economists.

Investors looking for safe haven strategies are opting for Treasuries or bonds backed by the full faith of U.S. government. The 10-year Treasury yield declined 0.104 percentage point on Monday, adding to the roughly half-point fall since mid-January, indicating strong demand as bond prices move in inverse to yields. Falling stock prices and rising bond prices signal economic malaise.

The silver lining to a rough Monday is that a drop at the open hasn't necessarily meant that the entire week is doomed. Bespoke looked across the last 18 drops of 1% or more on Mondays and found that an exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500 index had gained 1.23%, on average, a week later from the opening price.

Other good news lies within the broad economic indicators. The unemployment rate has slightly ticked up, but overall hiring remains strong. The new administration is trying to slash the federal workforce, but economists aren't expecting a big impact on the labor market for now. The latest GDP growth estimate for 2025 by Goldman has fallen to 1.7% from 2.4%, but it doesn't scream recession.

"While tariff uncertainty is contributing to market jitters, the aggregate impact is more likely a moderation in growth for the economy and corporate earnings rather than an outright decline," write Glenmede's Investment Strategy Team.

Whether that moderation translates to more rocky Mondays remains to be seen: Analysts currently expect S&P 500 earnings per share to grow by 11.6% in 2025 year over year, down from the prediction of 15% made in mid-2024.

Write to Karishma Vanjani at karishma.vanjani@dowjones.com.

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 10, 2025 16:56 ET (20:56 GMT)

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