• Some investors seek safe-haven assets in troubled times such as the current tariff-induced market turmoil.
• Gold hit record highs this year, with Bank of America maintaining its target of $3,500 an ounce.
• US dollar weakness and turmoil in bond markets indicate some doubts over their safe-haven status.

The turmoil engulfing global stock markets in recent days has prompted some investors to seek out "safe-haven" assets that typically maintain their value during periods of market turbulence.

Here's some of the main safe-haven assets and how "safe" they're proving in the market turmoil.

1. Gold

Gold prices hit record highs above the $3,000 threshold for the first time last month as fears of an economic downturn, tariff uncertainty, and purchases by central banks drove up demand.

The metal hit almost $3,150 at the end of March but has since retreated to just above $3,000.

John Reade, senior market strategist at the World Gold Council, told Business Insider that gold's rally this year was evidence of its enduring status as a safe-haven asset, and that the recent dips had not changed that.

Analysts at the Bank of America, led by Michael Widmer, said in a note on Sunday they maintained a price target of $3,500 for gold.

"Not all of President Trump's economic policies are fully compatible and rising policy uncertainty has been accompanied by higher gold prices," they said. "With the US becoming more inward-looking, there is also a risk that de-dollarization will continue, which should help the yellow metal."

2. Currencies

Certain currencies including the US dollar are usually considered to be safe havens in troubled times. However, some investors are seeking alternatives to the greenback after it plunged following Trump's tariff announcements.

The dollar's failure to strengthen means its status may be under threat, wrote Deutsche Bank's George Saravelos in a recent note.

Factors include the US current account deficit breaching the 4% threshold in recent months and the declining correlation between the dollar and risk assets.

UBS analysts said on Tuesday the dollar index has fallen about 1% in April despite the market volatility.

"Over the medium term, we believe a more sustained period of weakness for the US dollar is likely if the Fed cuts interest rates faster than expected in response to weakness in US economic growth. In addition, we believe that the uncertainty may lead some market participants to diversify long-held and profitable dollar asset exposures."

Investors often turn to the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, which have both rallied this month.

"The yen is seen as a safe haven asset because Japan is one of the world's largest creditors," Jason DeLorenzo, owner and principal of investment advisor Ad Deum Funds, told BI. "When there's global turmoil, the Japanese will repatriate to the yen, and it appreciates."

3. Treasurys

Treasurys are bonds issued by the US Government. They're regarded as one of the safest investments available "because they reliably pay an interest rate that is seen as risk-free," DeLorenzo said.

David Weild, the former vice-chairman of Nasdaq, told BI that economic turmoil reduces the value of most asset classes except bonds issued by rock-solid nations such as the US.

"If you looked at what happened in the wake of 2008, the only thing that rallied in that case was the Treasurys," he said.

Some even had a negative yield, or interest rate. "That was a sign that everybody was thinking that the banking system was insolvent and that they had to keep their money someplace where they could get it back — and that was buying T-bills," Wield said.

Davide Accomazzo, instructor of finance at the Graziadio Business School of Pepperdine University, said the "go-to safe investments" in volatile times have traditionally been Treasurys, but that may not be the case for much longer.

"The proposed set of new policies might hurt the economy and generate inflation as well, a most unwelcome result," he said. "Bonds fare well in economic slowdowns, but rather badly during inflationary times."

On Wednesday Treasury markets were experiencing what Deutsche Bank analysts called an "incredibly aggressive selloff" that added "to the evidence that they're losing their traditional haven status."

The yield on 30-year bonds jumped again to 4.96% following the fastest increase since March 2020 over the past two trading sessions. The return on 10-year Treasurys hit

"There's no sign yet that the market is managing to successfully find a bottom, and it feels like no asset class has been spared as investors continue to price in a growing probability of a US recession," the Deutsche analysts wrote.

4. Defensive stocks

Defensive stocks are companies that generally have stable performance regardless of the economic situation, because they sell goods or provide services that consumers will keep needing to buy.

Costco is one example. The retailer's stock has fallen in the past five days at Tuesday's close, but by just 4% and is almost flat for the year. The stock is faring better than Walmart, which is down 7.3% over the past five days and almost 10% this year, while Amazon's declines total 9% and 22% respectively.

5. Cash

Last but not least, there's cash — and even that has some downsides.

"Cash is seen as a safe haven because if you have money that isn't invested, it can't lose," DeLorenzo said. "However, if assets increase in value, your cash doesn't, and that implicitly subjects your cash to losing value. Also, inflation hurts cash assets."

For Accomazzo, cash offers a respectable yield and no volatility, but he also likes bonds.

"Despite their negative correlation to inflation, bonds might just be the better option on an intermediate horizon given current good yields and a shot at principal appreciation if rates ultimately come down," he said.

• US Treasury yields have spiked sharply in recent days.
• Surging US bond yields appear to reflect rising fears about the global economic impact of tariffs.
• US bonds are traditionally considered one of the safest assets, so falling prices are concerning.

US Treasury bond prices have cratered, and yields have spiked sharply in recent days as fears mount about the longer-term impacts of President Donald Trump's escalating trade war around the world.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond has risen around 12% since Monday, briefly climbing above 4.5% by early Wednesday morning. The five-year US Treasury yield has risen 13% in the same time, hitting 4%.

Bonds are loans that investors make to an entity such as a company or government, usually in exchange for interest payments on a set schedule, with the initial investment returned at maturity as well.

Bond yields and prices move inversely, with yields rising and prices falling in times of trouble, reflecting increased risk for investors.

US bonds are traditionally considered to be among the safest of safe-haven assets as the likelihood of a failed repayment by the US government is seen as incredibly unlikely. Investors rushing to sell them off is unusual and generally seen as a sign of market distress.

Treasurys under pressure

Investors selling US bonds come amid worries that President Donald Trump's new tariffs, which came into effect on Wednesday, may lead to rising inflation and increase the chance of a recession.

This, in turn, would likely slow or even halt expected interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a note on Tuesday that the heavy sell-off "spoke to broader concerns about the safety of US assets and their capacity to act as a haven in times of market stress."

There's also market speculation that some of the sell-off may be down to China getting rid of some of its $761 billion US Treasury holdings. In an executive order on Tuesday, Trump raised tariffs on China to 104%.

Lin Jian, Beijing's foreign affairs spokesperson, accused the US of "bullying practices" on Wednesday, soon before China announced retaliatory tariffs of 84% on US goods.

"A trend which will be watched closely is an apparent loss, whether temporary or otherwise, of US assets' safe-haven status. Treasurys sold off heavily amid some speculation China and other parties are dumping their holdings as a retaliatory tool," said Russ Mould of UK-based investment platform AJ Bell.

Fed action

The sell-off in Treasurys has also influenced global bond markets, with UK and Japanese yields climbing since Monday.

George Saravelos, Deutsche Bank's head of FX research, told clients in a note this week that continuing disruption could push the Federal Reserve to buy US bonds to support the market.

Should disruption continue, there would be "no other option for the Fed but to step in with emergency purchases of US Treasurys to stabilize the bond market," Saravelos' team wrote.

"While we suspect the Fed could be successful in stabilizing the market in the short-term, we would argue there is only one thing that can stabilize some of the more medium-term financial market shifts that have been unleashed: a reversal in the policies of the Trump administration itself."

• Jamie Dimon's annual letter to JPMorgan shareholders does not include the word "diversity."
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have faced setbacks since Donald Trump's presidency.
• JPMorgan renamed its DEI program to Diversity, Opportunity & Inclusion last month.

There was a certain word missing from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's annual letter to shareholders: diversity.

His yearly missive, which is closely watched in the world of finance and investments, dropped Monday and was largely focused on the uncertainty facing the world in 2025.

What it didn't discuss directly, however, was diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Last year, Dimon's letter mentioned "diversity" five times, but this year it didn't appear once. Neither did "inclusion."

DEI initiatives have been under fire in recent months. Since President Donald Trump took office, more companies have rolled back their DEI programs.

In January, Dimon voiced his continued support for the bank's DEI work, defending it against anti-diversity activists who appeared to be targeting it. Two months later, JPMorgan renamed its program to "Diversity, Opportunity & Inclusion (DOI)," according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider.

In Dimon's Monday letter to shareholders, he used the phrase "equal opportunity" numerous times and cited one of America's founding ideals, that it is a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "

"Our values transcend any political stance — libertarian, conservative, progressive, Democrat or Republican. We need to believe in ourselves and get back to work (in the office!), not tear each other down," he wrote.

Changes from 2024's letter

In addition to frequent mentions of diversity, 2024's letter featured a subheading that read "our extensive community outreach efforts, including diversity, equity and inclusion" under an "update on specific issues facing our company" chapter.

"We believe — and we are unashamed about this — that it is our obligation to help lift up the communities and countries in which we do business," Dimon wrote last year.

Dimon then listed 12 initiatives led by JPMorgan to reach that goal, including "Women on the Move," an organization that empowers women in their careers; "Advancing Black Pathways," a program that supports Black Americans; and "Entrepreneurs of Color," a lending program for small business owners.

None of these programs were specifically mentioned in 2025's letter, and just one paragraph directly mentioned Black, Hispanic, and Latino communities.

"We expanded our $5,000 Chase Homebuyer Grant program to include more than 15,000 majority Black, Hispanic, and Latino communities (where the grant is available to all)," it said.

The letter added that Chase operates 19 community centers and branches that are "often located in areas with larger Black, Hispanic or Latino populations" as part of the bank's localized investments initiative.

Asked for comment, JPMorgan directed BI to a letter to clients from COO Jennifer Piepszak in which she emphasized the bank's "belief in the power of a diverse workforce."

• President Donald Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs on Wednesday.
• Many commentators have questioned the tariffs and highlighted their potential economic consequences.
• One said Trump was unlikely to U-turn on the tariffs, so it was time to "sell the dip," not buy it.

President Donald Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs on Wednesday — and people have been reacting as global markets take a hammering.

Here's what big names in business and economics have been saying:

Business Roundtable

Joshua Bolten, the CEO of Business Roundtable, an association that represents more than 200 CEOs, said in a statement the tariffs "run the risk of causing major harm to American manufacturers, workers, families and exporters." He added: "Damage to the US economy will increase the longer the tariffs are in place and may be exacerbated by retaliatory measures."

He said the Business Roundtable "supports President Trump's goal of securing better and fairer trade deals with our trading partners" but called on him to introduce "additional reasonable exemptions" and a "transparent, predictable exclusion process."

Larry Summers

"Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much," Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary, wrote on X. "The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now closer to $30 trillion."

Summers added that the tariffs were the most expensive and "masochistic" the US had imposed in decades.

Mohamed El-Erian

"The price action in global financial markets in the immediate aftermath of the US tariff announcement points to major worries about global economic growth," Mohamed El-Erian, the former CEO of bond giant PIMCO and the chief economic advisor at Allianz, said on X.

Mariana Mazzucato

"These tariffs will cause inflation in the United States; they will cause lower consumer power of US workers. The estimates are between $1,700 to $5,000 per family in terms of the costs of these tariffs," Mariana Mazzucato, an economics professor at University College London, told ITV's "Peston" program.

Boaz Weinstein

Boaz Weinstein, Saba Capital Management's founder, doesn't expect Trump to change course, posting on X: "I'm often wrong, but I don't see him doing a u-turn. This is not a buy-the-dip opportunity. It's a sell the dip opportunity."

David Rosenberg

"So, this tariff file is now being labeled 'Make America Wealthy Again'? What is with that adverb 'again' which is defined as 'returning to a previous condition'? The previous condition, I can tell you, was not nearly as good as the current condition, seeing as US net national net worth just reached a record level of $157 TRILLION (a cool $1.2 million per household … too bad we don't all live at the average!)," David Rosenberg, the founder and president of Rosenberg Research & Associates, said on X.

"Have tariffs really stood in the way of wealth creation in America? I think the title should simply be the truth: 'Let's Make the World Poor Again' (and then we can buy it at a discount)," Rosenberg added.

Nouriel Roubini

Nouriel Roubini, a professor emeritus of the NYU Stern School of Business, said the "Liberation Day" label was "Orwellian doublespeak."

"Whatever the consequences of these tariffs will be — ie lower growth and higher inflation and how much of it depending on the eventual size of these tariffs post-negotiations that will be ugly and long-drawn. There is absolutely no 'liberation' at all in them: not for US consumers, workers and businesses, let alone for the rest of the world," he said on X.

Paul Krugman

"I guess it's just possible that when we get details about the Trump tariffs they will be lower than what he just announced, but based on what he said, he's gone full-on crazy," Paul Krugman, a Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist and former MIT and Princeton University professor, wrote in his Substack newsletter.

"If you had any hopes that Trump would step back from the brink, this announcement, between the very high tariff rates and the complete falsehoods about what other countries do, should kill them," Krugman added.

Howard Silverblatt

"March continued with President Trump's rapid executive orders and policy changes, as tariffs (along with their potential impact on the economy), inflation, employment and consumer spending became the main concerns of the market, which pulled back with increased trading on strong negative breadth," wrote Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst of S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a S&P Global column.

"Adding to the concern were Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) government employment reductions, as well as US layoffs, which have increased (along with retail warnings)," he added.

The Yale Budget Lab

"The price level from all 2025 tariffs rises by 2.3% in the short-run, the equivalent of an average per household consumer loss of $3,800 in 2024$. Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are $1,700," wrote the Yale Budget Lab in a new analysis published on April 2, shortly after Trump's blanket tariff announcement.

Jared Bernstein

"True, the United States is a large and dominant country. And it is a relatively closed country, meaning we depend less on trade than most other countries," said Jared Bernstein, former chief economist, in his newsletter. "That means, as Trump has correctly argued, we can hurt them more than they can hurt us. He fails to give a coherent rationale for why we need to start a trade war with Canada, Mexico, Japan, Europe, and other traditionally reliable trading partners."

"First, though they've been explicitly cavalier about the pain they're causing, higher inflation, slower growth, lower investment, falling stock prices — as of this moment, the Dow is down 1,200 points — and higher recession chances could force them to recant. But, at least so far, that may have been the way of Trump 1; it's not the way of Trump 2," he added.

Justin Wolfers

"Monstrously destructive, incoherent, ill-informed tariffs based on fabrications, imagined wrongs, discredited theories and ignorance of decades of evidence. And the real tragedy is that they will hurt working Americans more than anyone else," said Justin Wolfers, economics professor at University of Michigan and public policy scholar, on BlueSky.

Daryl Fairweather

"If these tariffs were more targeted and on specific goods, I wouldn't be so sure we would have stagflation. But these appear to be extremely broad, so I expect higher inflation and lower or even negative economic growth," said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin chief economist, on BlueSky.

"Home construction was already going to be weak this year, but these tariffs (combined with labor problems from immigration policy) will mean fewer homes built," she added.

Bill Gross

The latest set of tariffs is "a similar event to going off the gold standard in 1971. It's an epic event. It's not something where you can time quickly for a market bottom. It's something that we're going to have to live with as long as President Trump continues with this stance," Bill Gross, the cofounder of Pimco, told CNBC.

"I don't think he's going to back down. President Trump, to be very blunt, is a macho male, and this macho male is not going to back down tomorrow simply because the Nasdaq's down 5%," said Gross, who's also known as "Bond King."

Gross said it's not a time for investors to bottom fish, likening it to "catching a falling knife."

Steven Blitz

"Tariffs attack US trading partners but, in effect, attack US corporate profit margins first," wrote Steven Blitz, the chief US economist at GlobalData.TS Lombard. "The 40-odd years of profits rising relative to GDP has ended. The macro risk hitting markets is real, but only accentuates the devaluation process."

"Further exacerbating market volatility is redirection of foreign capital from the US to wherever multiple expansion appears more promising," Blitz wrote.

Jim O'Neill

Jim O'Neill, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, told BBC News on Friday that the "sensible" thing to do would be for the UK to speak to other members of G7, aside from the US, about lowering trade barriers between each other, particularly for cross-border services.

He said this would be "very healthy for all those countries because it's the one area of global trade that most countries haven't done enough in."

If the US wants to continue down this "kamikaze path," the UK will have to respond, O'Neill added. "It is the US which is going to be hurt more, especially in the short-term, from these rather insane moves."

Stephanie Kelton

"Just had a journalist ask me to explain "Liberation Day,"" Stephanie Kelton, author of The Deficit Myth, wrote in a post on X. "I told him it's about liberating Americans from some of the cash in their wallets."

George Saravelos

George Saravelos, a Deutsche Bank analyst, said in a Friday note that markets were pricing in a global recession.

"This is a US-centric fiscal shock driven by the Trump administration and it is fiscal policy that can unwind it. The countries that respond the quickest and most forcefully to this shock are those whose currencies will likely be the most resilient. And, on the flipside, the more the US fiscal strategy under the Trump administration lacks visibility, the more the market will punish the dollar and US assets.

"One last point: don't expect a reluctant-to-cut Fed to support the dollar. Remember that during the European supply-shock of 2022, the ECB turned hawkish. The euro sold-off regardless because real rates and growth expectations collapsed."

Kristalina Georgieva

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that US tariffs posed a "significant risk" to the global economy.

"We are still assessing the macroeconomic implications of the announced tariff measures, but they clearly represent a significant risk to the global outlook at a time of sluggish growth," she said in a statement on Thursday.

Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, told Ireland's Newstalk that the tariffs would be "negative the world over."

She said Trump's move "will not be good for the global economy and it will not be good for those who inflict the tariffs and those who retaliate."