5 Years Later

Five years ago, one crash ended. Today, another begins.

Reflecting on today's market crash—driven by escalating tariffs and global financial tensions—I can't help but notice the significance of timing.

April 7th, 2020. April 7th, 2025.

The end of one crash and the beginning of another. Exactly 5 years apart.

April 7th, 2020 marked the moment when collective terror transformed into something unexpected—a strange, intoxicating optimism.

The COVID-induced market crash ended, marking the beginning of an unprecedented bubble driven by stay-at-home optimism, boredom, and excess liquidity.

Recent frenzied AI investment rounds echo some of those wild days, yet nothing quite matches the unique intensity of that era.

Now, on April 7th, 2025—exactly five years later—we find ourselves at the start of another market crash, this time driven by tariffs instead of a virus, and our portfolio trackers flash a sickly shade of red.

When markets fall, time stretches. Each day of decline expands to contain multiple lifetimes of worry.

The 47 days of the Covid crash felt eternal while we lived through them. Only in retrospect do they compress into a brief prologue to what followed.

• March 9th, 2020 (Black Monday I): Dow Jones fell 2,014 points (7.79%)

• March 12th, 2020 (Black Thursday): Dow Jones dropped 2,352 points (9.99%)—a historic decline

• March 16th, 2020 (Black Monday II): Dow Jones plunged nearly 3,000 points (12.9%)

During these 47 days, the Dow lost 37% of its value; the S&P 500 declined by 34%.

But numbers alone can't capture the midnight anxieties or the compulsive dread with which we repeatedly check our portfolios.

We’re on the brink of another downturn, asking familiar questions: How deep will it go? How long will it last?

The most honest answer remains the simplest: nobody knows anything.

On Friday, April 4, 2025, the Dow fell by 2,231.07 points, or 5.5%, marking one of the most significant single-day losses in recent history.

This drop was slightly less severe than the 7.79% decline on March 9, 2020, but today's crash suggest we will experience losses similar to March 12, 2020, when the Dow plunged nearly 10%.

What's especially disorienting about this crash is that on January 20th, 2025—just 77 days ago—we were entering what many predicted would be a new "Golden Age" following Trump's re-election.

Today feels eerily reminiscent of early 2020, when our optimism about entering the "Roaring Twenties" vanished almost overnight as COVID emerged just weeks into the new year.

I remind myself that on February 20th, 2020, it felt as though the financial world was collapsing—but that crash lasted only 47 days.

The real question isn't if markets will recover—they always do—but whether we'll use this downturn to emerge as better investors and operators, maintaining financial discipline even when markets bounce back, unlike what happened in 2020.

My friend and investor Geoff Lewis describes my feelings today: It’s macro moments like our present one when I feel most energized. Volatility clarifies opportunity—bring on the chaos.

Five years ago, one crash ended.

Today, another begins.