Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 5, 2025.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
While investors and businesses spent the first days of April 2025 worrying about the future of global trade and the economy, President Donald Trump was busy buying into the stock market he created.
Trump bought 327 shares on April 8, 2025, according to a CNBC analysis of the president’s financial disclosures for 2025 including trades, income and debts and released Tuesday. That made April 8 his 11th busiest day for stock purchases last year, more than five times the daily average of about 62 for the calendar year, according to a CNBC analysis.
His buying came on the tail end of a steep four-day rally sparked by the unveiling of his broad and high tax plan. CNBC’s analysis shows that Trump’s buying has focused on mega-cap technology stocks that took a hit after he issued the policy on April 2, which he called “liberation day.”
The episode captures a central theme running through Trump’s second term: The president who has the most power to move the markets is the president and has the most personal hand in them. – with more personal investment at stake than any of his predecessors.
April 8, broad S&P 500 The index ended the session below the 5,000 mark and within inches of the bear market threshold, a term used to describe a 20% decline from a recent high. In this four-day session alone, the closely followed benchmark stock market fell more than 12%.
The next morning, minutes after the opening bell on April 9, Trump helped the market suddenly turn around.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Later that day, Trump announced that he was walking back on some of the market-destroying tariffs he announced last week.
The S&P 500 rose nearly 9.5% in that session, marking one of its best days on record. The benchmark has risen cumulatively by nearly 50 percent since April 8, 2025.
The White House, when asked to comment on Trump’s April 8, 2025 trade show, spoke extensively about the president’s assets.
“As President Trump said, he has a lot of assets because he was a very successful businessman before he became President, which is why he was elected in the first place,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told CNBC. “All the assets of the President are kept in accounts controlled by independent third parties. There is no conflict of interest.”
Trump on Wednesday told reporters that his trade is controlled by foreign groups.
“I’m not involved in my own — we have funds that manage my money,” Trump told reporters.
Big tech purchases
Trump’s April 8 purchases focused on some of the world’s largest public companies.
He bought shares for between $100,001 and $250,000 an apple, Alphabets, Amazon, Microsoft again Nvidia each day, the disclosure shows.
All five stocks are members of the Magnificent Seven, a group of mega-cap technology stocks credited with driving the market to record highs in recent years. All five also saw sharp declines after Trump’s tax policy changes, with investors breathing a sigh of relief that corporate costs won’t jump any time soon.
Apple, for example, fell 5% on April 8, its fourth straight negative day. The iPhone maker rose more than 15% in the next session, which will go down as its best trading day since 1998.
Nvidia, on the other hand, lost more than 1% of its value on April 8. The chipmaker jumped almost 19% the next day, which means it lost about one-fifth of its market value in one session.
Moving the market
The April stock exchange is just one part of a 927-page disclosure that shows $2.24 billion in revenue by 2025, according to a CNBC analysis, including hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto, more than $290 million from golf and club majors and more than $86 million from legal residences. Trump also continues to collect income from merchandise and accept many gifts, such as sports tickets.
President Donald Trump speaks about his new tax plan at the White House, in Washington, April 2, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
When it comes to market volatility in early April 2025, everyday investors have noticed how Trump has impacted stocks ahead of this week’s release.
On forums like the Reddit WallStreetBets page, some users applauded their decisions at the time to buy before Trump encouraged investors to. But a few others took a more serious stance, instead likening his actions to market manipulation.
“Can you imagine insider trading?”, one user wrote. “It’s as if you’re inside the white house and don’t leave this brazillionai[r]he is the dumbest person in the world.”
– CNBC’s Nick Wells again Deena Zaidi contributed to this report.
