90-Day Tariff Pause Sparks Historic Market Rally

To add more fuel to the confusion regarding Trump’s ‘plan’ and ‘vision’, he’s just announced a 90-day pause on tariffs — this comes one week after the reciprocal tariffs went live…

But the markets don’t care about any confusion this adds — green everywhere. The S&P 500 up 9.51%, Dow Jones up 7.87%, Nasdaq up 13.66%, Gold up 3.38%, and of course Bitcoin, up 8.27% with some altcoins up 20%. The DJI experienced its first 3,000-point single-day increase, Nasdaq posted its second-largest day in history, Japan’s stock market rallied 10% on open, and the volatility index (VIX) fell by 35% today. Recession odds have also dropped, with Polymarket showing a 49% chance after sitting at 66% yesterday.

Now does this mean the tariff pause will relieve markets of some volatility and reduce the uncertainty within? Potentially. Fear and Greed readings for both traditional markets and Bitcoin have jumped — S&P 500 up 13 points to 17 but still in extreme fear, and Bitcoin up 21 points from 18 to 39, moving from extreme fear to regular fear.

This tariff pause came only hours after Trump posted on Truth Social saying ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT’. We also saw traders open SPY, QQQ, and TQQQ call options expiring the same day — right before the pause was announced. Within the hour, those calls were up 2,100%... a clear sign of insider trading?

Now this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a tariff pause. Back at the start of February, when the US set tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China — a day later Canada hit back with the same. The US responded with a 30-day pause and markets rallied off the back of it. Bitcoin went from $91k to $101k during that stretch, but once the pause ended, BTC was back to $86k.

Currently we’ve seen Bitcoin rally from $74k to $83.5k on the news, Ethereum and Solana up 13%, Sui and XRP up 15%, and ONDO leading with 20%. Some great relief from recent bearish price action.

Now there’s still a long way to go before tariffs resume. In that time, expect more tariff headlines, potential negotiations, rate decisions, and inflation data. Until then, no one knows what the market will do — unless you’ve got a crystal ball.

The US 10-year Treasury yield (US10Y) saw serious movement this past week — starting around 4.20% on April 2, then dropping to a low of 3.87% by April 4 amid a bond rally and safe-haven demand. This initial move lower helped ease borrowing costs and supported risk-on sentiment, even as recession fears lingered. But yields then surged to 4.55% by April 9 after Trump’s tariff escalation on China, raising inflation risks and hitting risk assets.

After today’s pause, which reset most tariffs to 10% for 90 days, yields dropped back to 4.277% over the last 24 hours — a 23 basis point (-5.23%) decline from the peak. This pullback reflects reduced uncertainty, sparking a broad-based risk-on rally as capital rotated out of bonds and back into equities and crypto.

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