• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, April 4, 2025

Millions of eyes were no doubt glued to the nation’s business channels and web sites on Thursday to watch their money drain away.

It was difficult to watch, yet I could not look away. I tuned into CNBC on my PC at around 10 minutes to 10 in the morning and the Dow had already plummeted -1,200-plus points in 20 minutes since the markets opened (screenshot above).

It would go on to fall to more than -1,500 points, although at around noon the nosedive receded a bit to -1,100-plus points.

Small consolation: Stock values and retirement accounts have been draining away for weeks. Yesterday’s freefall in the wake of Trump’s tariff war was icing on a very stale, inedible cake.

Liberation Day? You’re kidding, right, Mr. President? It is not very liberating to see one’s money disappear, and then face higher prices for everything, as the experts said over and over again on TV on Thursday.

For the business news channels -- principally CNBC and Bloomberg -- this kind of news day is like their World Series or Super Bowl. Fortunately for the rest of us, it rarely happens.

I can remember only two other times when I chose to watch the DJIA dive, dive, dive on TV at rates rarely seen in my lifetime -- September 1987 and October 2008. Yesterday marks the third time. 

It is no knock on Bloomberg News that I happened to watch CNBC most of yesterday. Perhaps for me CNBC is the brand I tend to think of first.

They both covered the story in the professional way journalists tend to rise to when one huge story affecting millions dominates the news list to such a degree that there is no news list except for the one story.

Let it be said also that Bloomberg has always excelled at taking an international view of world markets in good times or bad. 

Yesterday, the network was well-positioned with its journalists in bureaus around the world to report on the international scene.

So important was this fast-moving story that for a portion of the morning, CNBC went commercial-free for several hours, although the commercial-free time period was sponsored entirely by Charles Schwab.

The sponsorship was seen on screen in one way or another during the network’s commercial-free stretch.

But before noon, the network went back to commercial breaks, at least in the live-stream I watched on CNBC.com. 

As the day wore on, the Dow and other the other indices inched their way back up again. When the trading session ended, the DJIA was down -1,679.39 (-3.98%), the NASDAQ, -1,050.44 (-5.97%), and the S&P 500 -$274.45 (4.84%).

Trump’s 10% reciprocal tariffs are set to go into effect on Saturday, when markets will be closed. 

But next Wednesday, April 9, tariffs of varying percentages far higher than 10% for larger U.S. trade partners such as China are scheduled to go into effect. Stay tuned, if you dare.