Visualizing Market Reactions to U.S. Tariff Policy

While tariff policies are designed to affect the trade of goods, their impact is often reflected in financial markets as investors respond to shifting expectations. Rather than focusing on headline moves, data visualization helps market participants to analyze how price action evolves over time—highlighting potential turning points, trend shifts, and areas of market consensus. 

By applying technical analysis to price movements, investors can observe patterns that offer context for these developments. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)—a commonly used proxy for the S&P 500—serves as a clear visual example of how the equity market has responded to recent U.S. tariff announcements. 

In February 2025, SPY began to decline following new U.S. tariff measures (Fig 1).

Fig. 1 SPY retreats from all-time-high after February US tariff announcements. ChartIQ, S&P Global Market Intelligence. As of April, 2025.

As the market digested these developments, price action moved below SPY’s 200-period simple moving average (SMA), a key indicator of long-term trend direction. The moving average then began to act as resistance (Fig 2), and a period of consolidation led to the formation of a bearish technical pattern (Fig 3).  

Fig 2. SPY breaches support level and confirms as new resistance. ChartIQ, S&P Global Market Intelligence. As of April, 2025.

Fig 3. Sideways price movement below the new resistance level creates bearish consolidation pattern. ChartIQ, S&P Global Market Intelligence. As of April, 2025.

Additional policy updates later contributed to a downside breakout from this pattern, with SPY approaching its previous all-time high in 2022 before it recovered to test the newly formed resistance levels (Fig 4). More recently, on SPY's 1-day chart, the 50-period simple moving average crossed below its 200-period moving average —a technical signal known as a “death cross,” which can be viewed as a sign of continued weakness (Fig 5). 

Fig 4. Global tariff expansion and bearish pattern continuation. SPY bounced from 2022’s all-time-high of $479.98 before back-testing the bearish pattern lower trendline. ChartIQ, S&P Global Market Intelligence. As of April, 2025.