Trump bought Apple, Nvidia, tech before tariff reversal fueled rebound

While investors and businesses spent the early days of April 2025 fretting over the future of global trade and the economy, President Donald Trump was busy buying into the stock market sell-off he created.

Trump made 327 stock purchases on April 8, 2025, according to a CNBC analysis of the president’s annual financial disclosure for 2025 that includes trades, income and liabilities and was released on Tuesday. That made April 8 his 11th busiest day for stock buying last year, more than five times the daily average of roughly 62 for the calendar year, according to the CNBC analysis.

His flurry of buying came on the tail end of a steep four-day spiral that was sparked by the unveiling of his plan for broad and high tariffs. CNBC’s analysis shows Trump’s purchasing focused on the mega-cap technology stocks that were hit hard after he released the policy on April 2, which he dubbed “liberation day.”

The episode captures a central theme running through Trump’s second term: A president with vast power to move markets is also a president with a vast personal stake in them — with more personal investment at stake than any of his predecessors. 

On April 8, the broad S&P 500 index finished that session below the 5,000 mark and within inches of the threshold for a bear market, a term used to describe a 20% drawdown from a recent high. Over the four-day run alone, the closely followed stock market benchmark tumbled more than 12%.

The next morning, minutes after the opening bell on April 9, Trump helped the market abruptly turn around.

Trump posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” Later that day, Trump announced he was walking back some of the market-roiling tariffs he had announced a week prior.

The S&P 500 climbed around 9.5% in that session, marking one of its best days on record. The benchmark has cumulatively surged around 50% since April 8, 2025.

The White House, when asked to comment on the timing of Trump’s April 8, 2025 trades, spoke more generally about the president’s assets.

“As President Trump said, he has a lot of assets because he was a massively successful businessman prior to becoming President, which was why he was elected to office in the first place,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CNBC. “All of the President’s assets are in held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions. There are no conflicts of interest.”

Trump on Wednesday told reporters his trades are managed by outside parties.

“I don’t get involved in my personal — we have funds that run my money,” Trump told reporters.

He bought between $100,001 and $250,000 in shares of Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia each that day, the disclosures show.

All five stocks are members of the Magnificent Seven, a group of mega-cap technology stocks that has been credited with propelling the market to record highs over recent years. All five also saw big rebounds after Trump’s tariff policy change, with investors breathing a sigh of relief that the companies’ costs wouldn’t immediately jump.

Apple, for instance, dropped 5% on April 8, its fourth-straight negative day. The iPhone maker surged more than 15% in the next session, which would go down as its best trading day since 1998.

Nvidia, meanwhile, shed more than 1% of its value on April 8. The chipmaker jumped nearly 19% the next day, meaning it gained almost one-fifth of its market value in one session.

The April stock trades are just one part of a 927-page disclosure that shows $2.24 billion in revenue in 2025, according to a CNBC analysis, including hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto, more than $290 million from major golf and club properties and over $86 million in legal settlements. Trump also continues to collect income from branded merchandise and has accepted numerous gifts, such as sports tickets.

When it comes to early April 2025’s market volatility, everyday investors took note of how Trump influenced stocks well before this week’s releases.

On forums such as the Reddit WallStreetBets page, some users applauded their decisions at the time to buy in before Trump encouraged investors to. But several others took a more critical stance, instead likening his actions to market manipulation.

“Can you imagine the insider trading?,” one user wrote. “Like if you are inside the white house and don’t come out of this a brazillionai[r]e you are literally the dumbest person on the planet.”

— CNBC’s Nick Wells and Deena Zaidi contributed to this report.