Volatility peaks for US stock
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Picture the VIX as a heart-rate monitor for markets. In thirty-five years only three proper cardiac episodes light up the screen – 2008’s financial crisis, 2020’s Covid economic shutdown and now the 2025 tariff tantrum. When President Trump’s “Liberation Day” duties landed on 2 April the gauge vaulted past 50, wiping 10.5 percent off the S&P inside forty-eight hours.
The difference this time is speed. Liquidity plumbing stayed calm, no credit valves froze and within nine trading days a truce lopped the VIX back under 30. Fear flashed, shrugged then fled, but the bruise remains.
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