Once again, I’m not best pleased with US President Donald Trump. In my lifetime, I suspect he’s the only American president to cause stock markets to plunge steeply twice in the space of 12 months.
Trump’s first market meltdown was caused by ‘Liberation Day’, when new US import tariffs collapsed share prices from 2 April 2025. His second stock slide started on Monday, 1 March, following the US attack on Iran on Saturday, 27 February.
Shares slide
Investors have responded to Trump’s latest policy misstep by selling shares, bonds, gold and other assets. Over one month, the US S&P 500 index is down more than 7%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has dropped by 7.8%. Meanwhile, the UK’s FTSE 100 index has lost 6.5% of its value in four weeks.
These and other falls have cost my family portfolio a huge sum since end-February. However, we have been unusually cautious this year, amassing a hefty amount in cash and short-term bonds. We aim to use this pot to “buy into good businesses at fair prices” — as my investment hero Warren Buffett advises.
Another great investor, Baron Nathan Rothschild, would often buy assets during very troubled times. Hence, as nervous investors sell and prices decline, I aim to buy battered shares at bargain prices.
Safe as houses?
Looking at the Footsie‘s worst performers over the past three months, I spotted one stock that my family portfolio already owns. This FTSE 100 flop is Persimmon (LSE: PSN), a leading British housebuilder.
The Persimmon share price ended 2025 at 1,358.5p, rising to peak at 1,552p on 18 February. Alas, since then it has crumbled hard, bottoming out at 1,056.67p earlier today (Monday, 30 March). As I write, it stands at 1,072.6p, valuing this construction group below £3.5bn.
After crashing 30.9% from its 2026 high, this stock appears undervalued to me. The shares now trade on under 12.2 times trailing earnings, producing an earnings yield above 8.2%. This means that their market-beating dividend yield of 5.6% a year is covered almost 1.5 times by historic earnings.
Once bitten, twice shy?
These resemble the fundamentals of a recovery play to me, but what if Persimmon turns out to be a value trap?
For the record, I’ve already been bitten by this business once, having bought this stock for our family portfolio in July 2022. We paid 1,856p a share for our current holding. Thus, we’re nursing a painful 42.2% paper loss to date. Ouch. Nevertheless, at current levels, I see these shares as an obvious bargain buy. Hence, I’ll discuss acquiring more with my wife.
That said, Persimmon’s outlook for 2026 has been clobbered by the US-Iran war. With energy prices soaring, UK inflation is set to surge. This makes it increasingly unlikely that the Bank of England can cut its base rate this year. Already, mortgage rates have jumped recently, making homes slightly less affordable. But it remains to be seen how hard this will hit UK housebuilders in 2025/26.
What other stocks and shares are moving markets right now? Read on to find out…
