U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a meeting with President of Argentina Javier Milei in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Oct. 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.
U.S. stocks had a rocky day of trading, swinging from highs to lows like the quality of Game of Thrones across its eight seasons.
At its lowest during the session, the S&P 500 fell as much as 1.5%, but recovered and traded positively for most of the day after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer hinted that China's next trade move could influence how President Donald Trump's tariffs are implemented.
The optimism in markets fizzled, however, when Trump said he was considering "terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil" and other forms of punitive measures, citing Beijing's halt of U.S. soybean purchases since May. Investors seemed to take that threat seriously, sending the S&P 500 down 0.2% for the day.
Developments elsewhere, however, were more encouraging. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the central bank might stop tightening monetary policy concerning its bond holdings. Meanwhile, major banks — bellwethers for economic activity — such as JPMorgan Chase , Citi and Goldman Sachs , beat earnings expectations, suggesting that the economy's fundamentals remain intact.
And while Oracle's pivot to AMD's artificial intelligence chips — a move away from Nvidia graphics processing units — may not thrill Jensen Huang, it reduces concentration risk and strengthens the case for investors banking on AI to continue the market rally.
Still, Trump's rhetoric overshadowed everything else. The question, then, is whether his trade brinkmanship will derail the AI-fueled market — or if the Magnificent Seven kingdom will stand.