CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Lower, Dow Falls 700 Points, Consumer Sentiment Tanks 3/28/25

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger CNBC. Wall Street opens Monday morning after a losing week for stocks. A Friday sell-off for the major averages. Investors are worried about tariffs, a trade war, tanking consumer sentiment and more. The Dow falling 715 points, 1.5% led lower by shares of Amazon down 4%. The S&P 500 index was down 112 points. That was just about 2%. The NASDAQ plunging 481 points on Friday. That was two and three quarters percent. Nvidia shares were down one and a half percent on Friday.

Recession talk on Wall Street seems to be fueled by White House policy. Even the president, when asked directly in various interviews, hasn't taken it fully off the table. In all of my years of covering economic policy, I have never seen an administration say it's OK to have a recession, that what we're going to do is so big and so great that we will risk a recession to make it happen. That's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leesman with CNBC's Scott Wapner.

Automakers shares fell again on Friday as 25% tariffs loom on imported cars and light trucks. And people are out this weekend trying to buy something before prices go way up. I think there's gonna be a lot of auto sales as people kind of front run an increase in auto auto prices because of the tariffs. Yardeni researches Ed Yardeni on CNBC and investors are bracing for Wednesday when President Trump says more tariffs will be announced.

It might be working in terms of getting people to the table, but it doesn't work for Wall Street and it's torture on investors. As long as he keeps changing the tariffs and keeps changing the numbers, Wall Street has to react and so does the economy. Farmer in Washington's Michael Farr on CNBC. Some investors say remember, you're supposed to buy low. Now is the time to actually make a list

of high quality companies where you can actually upgrade your portfolios. You don't have to own the number three or number four player in any given industry. You can now get number one or number two on sale. High Towers, Stephanie Link on CNBC. Consumer sentiment getting worse as inflation fears grow in the University of Michigan survey.

The University of Michigan's Consumer Inflation Expectation Survey coming in at the highest level since November 22. This all is consumer confidence in the economy tumbles to a 12-year low in March. That's according to conference board, as you may know. That's the fourth consecutive monthly contraction. CNBC's Carl Quintanilla. President Trump Friday pardoned the founders of the BitMEX crypto exchange.

They pleaded guilty to a range of criminal charges related to money laundering. The president also pardoned on Friday the CEO and founder of electric vehicle maker Nikola. The former CEO of Nikola, he was sentenced to four years in prison. He's been free though pending an appeal. His crimes allegedly were related to defrauding investors with misrepresentations about the electric vehicle company that he ran. Milton, we should point out, is a significant donor to the Trump campaign. CNBC's Eamon Javer's Gold hit its 17th record high of the year Friday. On Monday's watch list is the final trading day of the first quarter. Jessica Edinger, CNBC. June 5th, CNBC.