Wall Street has been whipsawed for more than a week by President Trump’s every word about tariffs. Now he’s facing accusations of using his power to deliberately manipulate the markets. The scrutiny started with a tale of two social media posts. On Wednesday, shortly after the U.S. stock market opened, Trump posted on his Truth Social network in all caps: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Less than four hours after his post, Trump said on Truth Social that he would pause the harshest of his tariffs on most countries. Stocks immediately skyrocketed in relief, with the Dow closing up almost 3,000 points — meaning that any investors who had followed Trump’s advice in the morning and bought into the stock market right away would have made quite a bit of money by the end of the day. Prior to his post, share prices had been plummeting for days, as fears mounted about the economic damage Trump’s new trade policies could cause. Powerful investors and billionaire business leaders had increasingly gone public airing their worries about the new tariffs and the resulting financial panic. By Wednesday afternoon, Trump seemed to hear them when he hit pause. Now some Democratic lawmakers and government ethics experts are calling for investigations into whether Trump was attempting to deliberately manipulate the markets, or to enable others to trade on insider information. Sens. Adam Schiff, Democrat from California, and Ruben Gallego, Democrat from Arizona, sent a letter to the White House on Wednesday requesting “an urgent inquiry into whether President Trump, his family, or other members of the administration engaged in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions, informed by advanced knowledge” of his tariff policy changes. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts, also called for an investigation, asking on the floor of Congress if this was “corruption in plain sight.” White House spokesperson Kush Desai accused Democrats of “playing partisan games” and tells NPR that Trump’s early-morning post was merely meant to calm investors’ fears. “”It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

George W. Bush’s former chief ethics lawyer says such statements would have led to firing

But the criticisms of Trump’s two Truth Social posts aren’t just limited to his partisan opponents. “We can’t have senior public officials — including the president — talking about stock prices and where to buy or to sell at the same time as they are making and announcing decisions that have a dramatic impact on stock prices,” says Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, who previously served as the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. If anyone in the Bush administration had made similar public statements urging people to buy or sell stocks, Painter added, “that person probably would [have been] fired.” Painter did not accuse President Trump of market manipulation: “We don’t have clear evidence of that here,” he tells NPR. But he pointed out that the president already has a track record of pushing the boundaries, at the very least. “Financial conflicts of interests for President Trump have been a concern since he was first elected in 2016,” Painter says, adding that the problems today are even greater. Trump’s embrace of the crypto industry, for example, has drawn ongoing scrutiny: The president, who has a growing personal portfolio of cryptocurrency-related businesses, has appointed pro-crypto Cabinet officials and promised the industry much friendlier regulation.

It’s up to the SEC to investigate accusations of insider trading

Despite the wide-ranging calls for investigations into Trump’s social media posts on Wednesday, Painter and others aren’t expecting to see much happen. The Republican lawmakers who control both the House and Senate have shown little interest in picking fights with Trump. Nor do ethics experts expect much movement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigates accusations of insider trading. On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm Trump nominee Paul Atkins to lead the SEC. And Trump in February signed an executive order claiming more power over independent regulatory agencies, including the SEC. An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

President Donald Trump and his advisers said this was the plan all along: Scare the bejesus out of the world by announcing astronomically high tariffs, get countries to come to the negotiating table, and — with the exception of China — back away from the most punishing trade barriers as America works out new trade agreements around the globe. But Trump’s 90-day pause on his “reciprocal” tariffs that were never actually reciprocal gives his administration just three months to strike enormously complex trade deals with dozens of countries that it says are lining up to negotiate. Financial markets aren’t buying it. Stocks have whipsawed as volatility has spiked. And other markets, including oil, bonds and the dollar, are sending a clear message of deep skepticism that Trump will be able to pull this one off.

Stocks

Following another steep sell-off Thursday, stocks appeared calmer — for now — and posted strong gains Friday. The Dow ended the day higher by 619 points, or 1.56%. The S&P 500 rose 1.81% and the Nasdaq was 2.06% higher. Markets were buoyed by Boston Federal Reserve President Susan Collins telling the Financial Times Friday that the central bank would step in to support financial markets if there were signs of distress. But stock market investors have been trading on a knife’s edge, and any announcement coming from the Trump administration on tariffs has the ability to send stocks surging or tumbling. For example, stocks plunged Thursday after the Trump administration clarified the math it had already used to set China’s massive 145% tariff. The street had believed the tariff was 125%. The Dow sank sharply, at one point falling more than 2,000 points. In the 129-year history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the index has closed higher or lower by at least 1,000 points just 31 times. Four of those times happened in the past week. The S&P 500 fell by just over 9% across the first week of April, its biggest one-week drop since March 2020. The benchmark index gained 5.7% this week, its biggest one-week gain since 2023. Despite Wednesday’s historic gain after Trump announced his detente, stocks remain well below where they were trading before the president presented his “Liberation Day” tariff plan on April 2.

Bonds

The bond market is acting weirdly. Typically, you’d expect bond prices to rise throughout periods of turmoil. US Treasuries are historically considered to be the safest of safe assets, backed up by the full faith and credit of the US government. But bonds aren’t rising — they’re falling. That’s largely because investors have lost faith in US trade policy, and they fear America could get hurt even worse than the countries Trump’s tariff policy is targeting. As JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders Monday, Trump’s “America First” policy risks alienating its most important partners and the country’s special standing in the world. US Treasury yields, which trade in opposite direction to prices, briefly surged on Friday above 4.5%. They were under 4% earlier in the week. That represents a massive move for the market. Higher yields could hurt America’s economy, as a number of consumer loans are closely tied to those rates. “The upward action in rates has been rapid in historical context and has provided no comfort to investors looking for havens in turbulent markets,” analysts at Citi said in a Friday note. US Treasuries were on track for their worst week since 2019, according to Bloomberg’s US Treasury total return index, when the New York Federal Reserve had to step in and purchase Treasuries to bring down a spike in yields caused by a liquidity crunch. “Current market conditions don’t require Fed intervention at this point, but Fed officials are likely monitoring market function closely,” said Chip Hughey, managing director for fixed income at Truist Advisory Services. Dimon said Friday on an earnings call that he expects there will be a “kerfuffle” in the Treasury markets that would lead to the Federal Reserve intervening. “They’re not going to do it now … they’ll do it when they start to panic a little bit,” Dimon said.

Oil

The oil market has been trading like we’re going into a recession. Prices have tumbled over the course of the past couple of weeks as investors feared Trump’s trade policy could sap demand for travel, shipping and transportation — all of which require fuel. US oil on Friday morning fell below $60 a barrel, close to a four-year low, before recovering slightly. Brent, the global benchmark, was hovering around $63 a barrel, the lowest since April 2021, before also gaining slightly. Oil gained on Friday after US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters that the US could stop Iran’s oil exports as part of Trump’s negotiations over the nation’s nuclear program, according to Reuters. US oil settled up 2.4% at $61.50 a barrel. Brent rose 2.26% to $64.76 a barrel. Yet concerns remain about the impact of tariffs on economic growth and how a potential slowdown could disrupt demand for oil. Oil prices have served as a prime recession indicator in recent years. Prices tumbled after surging above $100 a barrel for the first time as the Great Recession took hold in 2008. And prices went negative for the first time during the pandemic as a glut of oil became so severe that traders were literally paying storage facilities to take the unwanted oil off their hands.

Dollar

The dollar on Friday tumbled to its lowest level in three years. That’s the opposite of what you’d expect when tariffs are put in place. Typically, tariffs raise the value of a local currency, because it encourages residents to purchase homemade goods instead of foreign options, stretching their money further in comparison to other currencies. But currency traders have sold off the dollar, because they believe America will bear the brunt of Trump’s trade war fallout and end up comparatively weaker than before tariffs were put in place. The dollar on Friday hit its lowest level against the euro since 2022. The dollar index — which measures the dollar against a basket of currencies — fell 0.9% Friday after tanking 2% Thursday, which was its worst single-day drop since 2022. Those are massive moves in currency trading world. “Investors and central banks are selling Treasuries and dollars due to a loss of confidence and credibility in American assets,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist RSM. “Financial chaos has its cost.” Meanwhile, gold prices surged above a record high $3,200 a troy ounce on Friday. Gold is up more than 23% this year and just posted its best quarter since 1986. The yellow metal is considered a safe haven amid economic and political uncertainty.

Trade deals

Despite financial markets casting enormous doubt that the Trump administration can salvage the opportunity it created for itself to strike bilateral trade agreements with all 150 countries around the world, the Trump administration remains optimistic. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week that more than 70 countries have asked to meet with US representatives to strike a deal that could get them out from under the thumb of Trump’s punishing tariffs. Although the administration has provided few details of which countries it is negotiating with, it said it would favor allies like South Korea and Japan first. But trade deals are incredibly complex arrangements usually negotiated over the course of years, not months. And even if Trump were to negotiate trade with all those countries over a short period — whether full deals or letters of agreement that put a framework of a deal together — China, the world’s biggest exporter, remains the elephant in the room. US tariffs on China are now at at least 145% and China on Friday retaliated with 125% tariffs of its own. That will do enormous damage to the world’s two largest economies, and both sides have said they are not eager to back down. China has consistently said it is open to negotiations, but wants to do it in a way in which it will be respected. China has ignored America’s warnings not to raise its tariffs, according to a source familiar with the discussions. In the meantime, economists have been unmoved by Trump’s sudden change in tune. Although negotiated trade agreements would undoubtedly be good news for the economy, much of the damage has already been done, Wall Street economists have argued. And punishing 10% universal tariffs remain in place, as do 25% tariffs on autos, 25% tariffs on some goods from Mexico and Canada, and 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. That’s why JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs say the likelihood of the United States and the global economies going into a recession this year are basically a coin flip. This story has been updated with additional developments and context.