April 2025 Monthly Market Review
An excerpt from our April 2025 Monthly Market Review:
April marked a continuation of the market’s frenetic efforts to discount the ultimate impact of tariffs. Survey data continue to point to plunging sentiment and soaring short- and long-term expectations for inflation, but hard data suggest a more nuanced, albeit lagged, view of the state of the global economy.
The U.S. equity market closed a volatile April with a slight decline, as a month-end rally erased earlier steep losses. Most non-U.S. equity markets continued to outperform. Chinese equities fell sharply, however, in part reflecting signs of a tariff-induced downturn in industrial production. The underperformance of U.S. stocks relative to their developed market counterparts so far this year amounts to about 16 percentage points, the largest 4-month performance shortfall in 30 years. The U.S. dollar fell against most major currencies in April, while gold continued to climb, briefly topping $3,500 per ounce. Oil prices, however, collapsed, pointing to fears of a global economic slowdown. Download the full review to explore data on the below April 2025 insights:
- Expectations, Markets, and Data: So far, the impact of tariffs is visible primarily in survey data which show plunging consumer and business sentiment and rising inflation expectations.
- Volatile U.S. Equity Market Ends Month Little Changed: Tariff uncertainty fueled U.S. equity markets volatility in April. The VIX index (an option-based measure of expected shortterm equity market volatility) spiked but remained shy of crisis peaks.
- Chinese Economic Weakness Weighs on Stocks: The MSCI World ex-U.S. index of advanced economy stocks gained 4.6% in April, bringing its gain so far this year to 11%.
- Iconic Commodities Tell Different Tales: Gold and oil tell different tales about the state of the global economy and markets. Soaring gold prices suggest growing disillusionment with the dollar, while plunging oil prices point to fears over a slowdown in global growth.
