Trump Tariffs Wiped $50K From My Portfolio. I Did Nothing.

On February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump’s reciprocal tariffs unconstitutional. The news was everywhere. The Nikkei 225 — Japan’s equivalent of the S&P 500 — had been falling for five straight days. And what did I do? Nothing.

Well, more precisely, I chose to do nothing. This wasn’t laziness. It’s a conclusion I arrived at after eight years of investing — including the boring first three years where I questioned whether any of this was even working.

I Could See ¥50 Million… Then ¥7 Million Disappeared

Let me rewind to April 2025.

Trump went full throttle on reciprocal tariffs. Up to 125% on China, 24% on Japan. Markets panicked, predictably.

My portfolio took a direct hit. I’d been approaching ¥50 million (about $333K) in total assets, and suddenly I was staring at ¥43 million ($287K). ¥7 million — roughly $50,000 — vanished in a matter of days.

Fifty grand is a lot of money. You could buy a decent used car. How many family vacations is that? Once you start down that mental path, there’s no end to it.

But I didn’t sell. I didn’t change my monthly contribution amount. I opened the brokerage app, looked at the numbers, and that was it.

Five Years Ago, I Absolutely Would Have Panic-Sold

If this had been the version of me from five years ago, there’s no way I would’ve held on.

When I was trading individual stocks, every time a price dropped I’d scramble to figure out why. Earnings miss? Industry news? Short sellers? Not knowing the reason while watching red numbers pile up day after day — that fear was brutal. (I wrote about that era in The Day I Hit Sell on a $14,000 Loss.)

After switching to index fund investing, one thing changed dramatically:

I could understand why the market was falling.

“Trump imposed tariffs, so the market dropped.” That’s it. And just knowing that changes everything. When you understand the cause, you can at least make reasonable guesses about what comes next. You’re freed from the worst kind of fear — watching your money bleed with no idea why.

A crash in an individual stock is like a car accident — it comes out of nowhere. A dip in an index fund is like a typhoon — you see it coming on the forecast. Both cause damage, but being mentally prepared makes all the difference in how you handle it.

The Thought Process Behind “Do Nothing”

Let me be clear: the day $50K disappeared, I wasn’t some zen master feeling nothing. I woke up in the middle of the night and opened my brokerage app. My wife asked me, “Are we okay?” I felt it.

But what I did next was a very simple mental checklist — not an emotional response, but a mechanical verification.

First: Can we still pay the bills? My salary hadn’t changed. I keep a full year of living expenses in cash, separate from investments. Tomorrow’s groceries, next month’s rent — none of that was affected. OK.

Second: Is there any reason to stop contributing? The entire point of dollar-cost averaging is to keep buying mechanically, even — especially — when prices are low. A down market means my same monthly contribution buys more shares. Stopping now would be like walking out of a clearance sale. No rational reason to stop. OK.

Third: Is this dip temporary or permanent? Looking at the historical performance of the S&P 500, every major crash — the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID crash, the dot-com bust — recovered within a few years. There has never been a scenario where the global economy sank permanently. This time the cause was clear: tariffs. When policy changes, markets respond. OK.

Three checks. Three OKs. The rational conclusion: do nothing. It wasn’t courage or faith. It was a checklist.

The Numbers Back Up “Do Nothing”

What keeps me grounded isn’t wishful thinking — it’s data.

If you’d invested in the S&P 500 for any rolling 20-year period in history, you would have come out ahead regardless of when you started. One-year returns swing wildly — some years are deeply negative. But stretch the time horizon to 20 years, and the track record is unbroken.

Of course, past returns don’t guarantee future results. But the underlying thesis — that the global economy grows over the long term — hasn’t been disproven yet. Index investing is a vehicle for riding that growth. The only question is whether you give it enough time.

Even with $50K wiped out, my portfolio was still significantly above my total contributions. And every month, my automatic contributions kept buying at lower prices. When recovery comes, those cheaper shares will amplify my returns. I know this intellectually. The hard part is the gap between what your brain knows and what your gut feels — but after never selling since 2018, that gap has gotten narrower each year.

What Recovery Actually Feels Like

After the tariff shock, the market clawed its way back over several months. Not in a dramatic V-shape — more like a staircase with occasional steps down. Up a little, down a little, and then one day you look at your account and think, “Oh. It’s mostly back.”

The strange thing about recovery is that you don’t feel it happening. The daily movements are too small to register. It’s only when you compare your balance to three months ago that the difference becomes obvious. Kind of like dieting — step on the scale every day and you see nothing; compare photos from three months apart and the change is undeniable.

After going through this cycle a few times — COVID, tariff shock, and everything in between — you develop a tolerance for downturns. Not immunity. Tolerance. The kind that comes from lived experience, not from reading about it.

Next time something hits — and something will — I’m fairly confident my conclusion will be the same. Do nothing.

The Supreme Court Said “Unconstitutional” — But Nothing’s Really Resolved

Now, back to February 20, 2026.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unilaterally. Sounds like good news, right? Except Trump signed a brand-new 10% tariff that same day using Section 122 of the Trade Act.

Just when you think it’s over, here he comes again.

I’m pretty convinced this guy follows through on what he says, so this kind of thing is going to keep happening. The form of the tariff might change, but “market-rattling events” will keep showing up on a regular basis. COVID. Ukraine. Tariff shocks. I don’t know what’s next, but something is coming.

So if I’m going to react to every single one, I’ll never stop reacting.

The Real Story Behind Rising Prices: Everything, All at Once

When tariffs come up, the conversation naturally gravitates toward investing. But the impact on daily life is actually bigger.

Every trip to the grocery store in Japan reminds me. “Prices went up again.” Rice is reportedly up about 90% year-over-year. Over 20,000 food products have seen price hikes. Beef bowls and burgers are up around 25%.

So is this all Trump’s fault? Not even close.

During COVID, governments worldwide pumped out a combined $13.9 trillion in stimulus. Supply chains broke. The Russia-Ukraine war sent energy and grain prices soaring. Japan’s weak yen made every import more expensive. Labor shortages pushed up wages.

It’s an everything-all-at-once situation. Not one single cause — a pile-up of factors all hitting at the same time. Tariffs are just one ingredient in the mix.

How long prices will keep climbing? I honestly don’t know. And yeah, that’s unsettling.

My Dollar-Denominated Assets Became Accidental Insurance

There is one silver lining, though.

Eight years ago, I started investing in U.S. index funds. That turned out to be — entirely by accident — a hedge against the weak yen.

The weak yen pushes up prices in Japan. But most of my assets are denominated in U.S. dollars. When the yen loses value, my dollar-based holdings are worth more in yen terms.

When I first started investing, hedging against yen depreciation wasn’t even on my radar. Pure luck. But the result is that while my daily expenses are getting squeezed, my portfolio is holding up. Think of it like earning in dollars but spending in yen — the exchange rate works in your favor on the asset side.

If I hadn’t been investing at all, I’d just be watching my savings quietly lose purchasing power in this inflationary environment. That thought alone is scary.

All I Can Say to Coworkers Is “Yeah, Rough Times”

At the office during lunch, someone always brings it up. “Everything’s so expensive lately, huh?”

“Yeah, rough times,” I say. But there’s more I’m not saying.

“Actually, most of my assets are in dollars, so the weak yen is kind of working in my favor” — yeah, I can never say that out loud. That’s how you destroy workplace relationships in an instant. Money talk is especially dangerous when there’s a gap in where you and the other person stand. I once watched a former boss brag about money and saw those relationships fall apart in real time. That memory keeps me quiet.

I want to say it. But I can’t.

This blog is the only place where I can write what I really think. Without an outlet like this, I feel like it would slip out someday.

When You Understand the Cause, You Don’t Flinch

Trump tariffs wiped $50K from my portfolio. Prices keep rising. The Supreme Court calls it unconstitutional, and a new tariff pops up the same day.

But every single one of these drops has a known cause.

Back when I lost ¥2 million ($14K) on individual stocks, I watched red numbers every day without understanding why, and my hands were literally shaking. Now I understand the cause, so even when the drop is bigger, I handle it differently.

My playbook doesn’t change. Keep making monthly contributions, steadily. Watch the news, but don’t touch the portfolio. I still haven’t fully kicked my habit of checking my portfolio at 4 AM, but at least my fingers stay away from the buy and sell buttons. Trump will keep doing Trump things. Shocks beyond tariffs will come too.

Each time, I’ll choose to do nothing. It’s the most boring and the hardest investment strategy I’ve learned — and it took eight years to get here.

When the Market Crashes, Check These Four Things

I’ll leave you with the mental checklist I run through whenever the market takes a dive. Maybe it’ll help someone.

1. Is your emergency fund intact? If you have six months to a year of living expenses in cash that’s not invested, there’s no reason to panic. As long as tomorrow’s bills are covered, you can afford to stay calm.

2. What caused the drop? A decline with a clear cause — tariffs, a policy change, geopolitical tension — tends to get priced in over time. A decline with no clear cause is scarier, but if you’re in index funds, no single company’s scandal can deal a fatal blow.

3. Has your investment strategy changed? If the answer is “no,” then your actions shouldn’t change either. The only time to revisit your strategy is when your life changes — retirement, a major expense, a new family member — not when the market moves.

4. How will you view this decision in five years? Think back five years. If you’d panic-sold back then, where would you be now? In almost every case, the answer is: worse off than if you’d held.

This might sound like textbook advice. And maybe it is. But being able to run through this list calmly while staring at $50K in losses — that’s something you can only build through years of experience.

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This post reflects my personal investing experience and is not financial advice or a recommendation of any specific financial product. All investments carry the risk of loss, and any decisions should be made at your own discretion.