Government ownership of stocks, with a for-profit goal, can be a slippery slope.

In the seven months since President Donald Trump's inauguration, Wall Street's major stock indexes have been taken on quite the ride.

The president's unveiling of his tariff and trade policy on April 2 spawned the fifth-biggest two-day percentage decline in the benchmark S&P 500 ( ^GSPC 1.52% ) in 75 years, as well as hurled the Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC 1.88% ) into a full-fledged (but ultimately short-lived) bear market.

This sharp downturn was followed by Donald Trump announcing a 90-day pause on higher " reciprocal tariff rates " on April 9. The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI 1.89% ) responded by logging their largest single-session

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