This is an installment in a multi-part series. .
As President Donald Trump’s tariff policies continue to reshape markets, effects are being felt even among young
investors. University of Iowa students, new to navigating the investment world, are finding themselves watching these developments closely.
Over the last year, Trump’s tariff policies — or taxes on imported goods — have shifted repeatedly, from threats of 100 percent duties on Chinese technology exports in early October to a Nov. 1 deal on economic and trade relations. These policy shifts have sent ripples through
global markets.
As Trump’s tariffs continue to develop, so has the U.S. stock market, with the S&P 500 — a stock market index tracking the performance of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the U.S. — sinking 2.7 percent after Trump threatened the 100 percent tariff.
Adam Conrad, a second-year UI student double majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology, is a self-taught investor of two years.
When the April tariffs rolled out, imposing a 10 percent tariff on all countries and higher reciprocal rates on those with the largest U.S. trade deficits, Conrad was caught off guard, not expecting Trump to actually implement them.
“When he announced [the tariffs] during his campaign, I was kind of skeptical he would actually do it,” Conrad said. Following the announcement, Conrad felt the effects of the tariffs on his portfolio. “I lost about 10 percent of my portfolio the first time it hit. I realized I probably needed to invest differently,” Conrad said. Nationally, the country felt similar effects with the S&P 500 companies dropping 11 percent in just two days, wiping out an estimated $5 trillion in stock value, Reuters reported. With continued uncertainty in the market, Conrad said he has limited his investment.
“I’ve been limiting my portfolio and my exposure to safer bets that are less affected. Only about 40 percent of my portfolio is exposed to the broader market,” Conrad said. One common shift cited by UI investors was buying shares of international companies. Conrad pointed to Coca-Cola as an example of an international investment strategy.
“They’re an international company, so even if the U.S. is doing bad economically, other countries might not be,” Conrad said.
Ani Singh, a second-year UI student, began exploring investment opportunities in China, where he saw an “undervalued market,” meaning the stock that is selling in the market for a price is presumed to be below the investment’s true intrinsic value.
“I didn’t want to invest in America at the time partly because of the tariffs, but I also thought the market was overvalued, so I wanted to hedge against a market decline in America,” Singh said. This follows a global trend. Investing.com reported a $24.7 billion outflow in May 2025 from the U.S. stock market. According to Investopedia, outflow refers to the “movement of assets out of a country.” As a result, both Conrad and Singh expressed frustration with the tariffs and its implementation.
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“It’s an unfortunate reality that with these tariffs, no reasonable investor wants them. A lot of the Fortune 500 companies, pretty much any market where they trade stocks, goes down with these tariffs in place,” Conrad said.
Although Singh voiced concern over the government’s interference in the market, he also expressed hope that the government would put money from the tariffs into the nation’s $38 trillion of debt and its benefit, if paid off, to the country.
“If President Trump actually uses the tariff revenue — which right now is projected to be about $350 to $400 billion — to pay off the deficit and the debt, then that could be positive for America as a whole,” Singh said. “But I’m not too sure about that because I don’t really trust the government to spend revenues wisely.”
UI assistant professor of finance Petra Sinagl said as an economist, the tariffs make no sense. “This is bad news. In the short run, prices that you would see are likely to go up. What’s even more damaging, and we’re likely to see, is uncertainty will go up immediately,” Sinagl said.
While tariffs are bad news for investors hoping to pull their money out of the stock market, Sinagl still heavily encouraged young investors to keep investing, adding it is an opportunity to buy stocks “for sale.”
“If you have a short horizon, and you need to pull your money out of the stock market, this is bad news. Many of our students have long horizons, so it’s a good time to think about buying,” Sinagl said. “For any student investors, one angle is that the asset is going on sale. What you can do when there is a huge drop in the market value is that you can buy.”
Sinagl still encouraged investors to remain optimistic toward the stock market and the boost the market is seeing due to artificial intelligence, or AI. “What is happening at the same time is this AI technological revolution, so there is still a pretty strong growth in the stock market, which is due to the fact a lot of companies are growing because of the benefits of using AI products,” Sinagl said.
Not everyone sees the market downturn as an opportunity. For some families, the tariff-fueled volatility has meant significant losses, creating anxiety for newer investors watching their parents’ portfolios shrink.
“My grandparents are retired,” Conrad said. “They are on a fixed income from the 401(k) and retirement accounts they have, which are invested in the stock market. My parents are currently trying to retire; with these tariffs, it riffed them going into retirement. It would be risky for them to do that right now. They’ve decided they’ll probably be in the job market for a few more years.”
