I missed anything to do with the market today or the circus with it. Looks like we had a decent day to end the week. What a stretch we have been through lately. We shall see what’s in store for us next week and beyond as earnings start to report. I haven’t checked, but I assume the first banks reported well to kick it off.
It's clear earnings will not be strong across all sectors. Some sectors should be as solid as ever. I look forward to seeing both AMD and nVidia numbers. Both should be excellent. Perhaps Tesla will be the most interesting. I'm expecting earnings to be well off but sometimes companies can dress up their P&L for several quarters after they start to struggle.
Agree with your thoughts above TB16. What will be interesting is some of the later reports down the road as this tariff stuff works into the consumer and companies. Of course, a lot can happen by then. This past week is evidence that anything goes at this point.
Politics Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from new tariffs Smartphones and computers are among many tech devices and components that will be exempted from reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, according to new guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The guidance, issued late Friday evening, comes after Trump earlier this month imposed 145% tariffs on products from China, a move that threatened to take a toll on tech giants like Apple, which makes iPhones and most of its other products in China. The guidance also includes exclusions for other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells, flat panel TV displays, flash drives, and memory cards. These products could eventually be subject to additional duties, but they are likely to be far lower than the 145% rate that Trump had imposed on goods from China. The exemptions are a win for tech companies like Apple, which makes the majority of its products in China. The country manufactures 80% of iPads and more than half of Mac computers produced, according to Evercore ISI. “This is the dream scenario for tech investors,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, told CNBC. “Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs.” He added that the tariffs have been a “black cloud over tech since the day of liberation, because no sector was going to be more hurt than big tech.” “I think ultimately big tech CEOs spoke loudly, and the White House had to understand and listen to the situation that this would have been Armageddon for big tech if were implemented,” Ives said. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. In the days since Trump’s tariff announcement, Apple lost over $640 billion in market value, CNBC previously reported. The cost of an iPhone under Trump’s tariff plan could have ballooned to as high as $3,500 under some estimates. Since Trump’s tariffs announcement, stocks have sold off sharply as uncertainty and volatility on Wall Street spiked. The S&P 500 plunged more than 5% during the period until Friday’s close. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield soared more than 50 basis points during the week, one of its largest jumps on record, as the whiplash from Trump’s trade policy led investors to sell off U.S. assets. The bond market’s move higher may have forced the White House’s hand into some reversals, including a 90-day tariff reprieve on most countries in favor of a universal 10% rate announced Wednesday — excluding China. The items excluded from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs under the new guidelines are effective for products that have left the warehouse as of April 5, 2025.The reason for this stipulation is freight is charged at the current date of transport out of a manufacturing plant, warehouse and onto a vessel for transport. This provides clarity and financial planning for the U.S. shipper, who is responsible for paying the tariff once it arrives weeks later at U.S. Customs for processing and release.
The above article, if true/accurate, will undoubtedly help the tech sector. This is my own little conspiracy view might be why the markets were green Friday, possibly a little advance notice of this announcement.... This all seems to have been implemented in a haphazard type of way. Something is always changing and moving around. At 145% vs 125% between US and China....nobody is going to trade anything at that value. The Customs folks must be losing their minds trying to sort through all of this with all of the changes and daily updates. It's almost if they realized, "Wait, you mean we get most of our i-phones and electronics from there??"
I guess now we are going to have "sector specific tariffs." Electronics products will be included in the Trump administration’s upcoming sector-specific tariffs, U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday. “Electronics products will be part of upcoming sectoral tariffs,” Lutnick was quoted as saying. He clarified that electronic goods would fall under the semiconductors category and would be subject to “special tariffs coming soon.” According to Lutnick, semiconductor and electronics tariffs will be implemented within a month, while pharmaceutical tariffs are expected in the next month or two. The announcement follows a recent move by the administration that appeared to temporarily spare the electronics sector.
It would seem to me that you would want to work through some of this in a more orderly way prior to just blasting everything out on "April 2." This is turning into quite the spectacle overall. It's almost if "everyone" has an idea, but nobody is planning or communicating effectively.
As to the below article....Just putting it up....I have no idea if it is true, accurate, or quite possibly changed in the next few minutes or denied tomorrow. I don't think anybody knows at this point. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector, to give carmakers time to adjust their supply chains. “I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with it,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. The Republican president said automakers needed time to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and other places, "And they need a little bit of time because they’re going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I’m talking about things like that.” The statement hinted at yet another round of reversals on tariffs as Trump's onslaught of import taxes has panicked financial markets and raised deep concerns from Wall Street economists about a possible recession. When Trump announced the 25% auto tariffs on March 27, he described them as “permanent.” His hard lines on trade have become increasingly blurred as he has sought to limit the possible economic and political blowback from his policies. Last week, after a bond market sell-off pushed up interest rates on U.S. debt, Trump announced that for 90 days his broader tariffs against dozens of countries would instead be set at a baseline 10% to give time for negotiations. At the same time, Trump increased the import taxes on China to 145%, only to temporarily exempt electronics from some of those tariffs by having those goods charged at a 20% rate. “I don’t change my mind, but I’m flexible,” Trump said Monday. Trump's flexibility has also fueled a sense of uncertainty and confusion about his intentions and end goals. The S&P 500 stock index was up slightly in Monday afternoon trading, but it's still down nearly 9% this year. Interest rates on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes were also elevated at roughly 4.4%.
Ok......I have followed the markets for the past couple of weeks. I will probably get a chance to do some posting tonight.....later. I have to say my view is probably NOT the same as many others. I am totally focused on the....BIG PICTURE. I am totally outside the day to day innuendo, speculation, media rumor mongering and twisting, etc, etc, etc. I consider that we are in a significantly positive position regarding tariffs and the likely outcome. In the end we.....the USA.....will be far stronger as an economic power in the world and it will be a very good thing for the world. In the end we will have a much more FREE MARKET oriented world. SCREW CHINA......we dont need them outside the short term. They TOTALLY need us. I look at where we are right now as the world is lined up.....negotiating with us....cutting trade barriers and I LIKE what I see. We have isolated China and put them on the defensive. We have Japan, Viet Nam, and the EU...talking about zero-zero tariffs. An amazing achievement from where we were a few months ago....with barriers keeping much of our consumer and industrial goods and autos out of many countries. We have at least SEVEN TRILLION in investment lined up for the USA and more happening every day.....and....that is not a static number....it will compound by 3X or 5X or even 10X as that money is spent and circulates in.....OUR....economy. As to Mexico and Canada.....still at about 34% tariff.....we will deal with them later.....EASILY. I dont discount that the market correction continues.....even if people now....can not separate it from the obsession with tariff speculation and politics. Basically the day to day market action NOW is about what it has been recently....anyway. I was very HAPPY to see that as of the close today I am at (-10.34%) year to date. I expected that I would be significantly lower. My view of the next 3-6 months......the TAX BILL will pass...... locking in the tax cuts which are massively positive for our business, economy and the "little people". Oil is coming down as is inflation. NO.....I have no concern about inflation and the tariff drama. The tariff drama and politics that are rampant today will end up with the USA in a far superior trading position......and as usual....will turn out to be nothing more than out of control FEAR-MONGERING. Bureaucracy and regulation......are and will.....be massively cut....a HUGE positive for the country, the markets, and business. I have ZERO concern for any of the DRAMA of the past few weeks. As I said....I am all about....THE BIG PICTURE. SO.....dont expect much out of me regarding the drama and political posturing and media speculation and made up BS of the past couple of weeks. Basically I am glad to have missed it all.......not that I really missed it. I have followed the markets every day....but simply decided to see what others had to say on here.
The BIG WINNERS.....in the end? ALL those that bought great companies at BARGAIN BASEMENT prices a week or two ago. I am not talking about how they will do in a few weeks or months....but as usual.....LONG TERM. Where was the panic......well as usual.....the Hedge funds.....the professionals....the experts........the traders. The little retail investor......here you go: Retail investors are running head first into this topsy-turvy market https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/10/ret...-head-first-into-this-topsy-turvy-market.html "Key Points Stocks have been on a wild ride since President Donald Trump announced a slate of tariffs on April 2. In the four-session stretch ending Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 4,500 points, while the S&P 500 lost 12%. Retail investors have swooped in to snap up stocks at depressed values, pointing to a buying opportunity as the major averages slid." Classic BIG PICTURE.....long term investing.
BOTTOM LINE......a lot of people that thought they were investors are going to be kicking themselves in about 6-18 months. Of course this and the above is simply....."MY OPINION".....anyone else.....think what you want or need to.....and......do what you have to do. I DO NOT GIVE INVESTMENT ADVICE IN THIS THREAD........so PLEASE dont go out on a limb based on what "I" think.
You know to concisely put the above out there......I would say.....I dont care about process.......especially day to day, week to week. It is like making sausage.....a big messy situation. WHATEVER.....just get there.....I dont care how. All I care about......BIG PICTURE.....is the end result. AND.....common sense and logic tells me that in the end....no matter how we get there.....we, the USA,...... will end up with massively better trade terms around the world and especially with our......"friends". So I have trouble getting all worked up over the BS of the past couple of weeks.
I totally agree. China froths at Trump tariffs but has only itself to blame https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...f-to-blame/articleshow/120092413.cms?from=mdr MY COMMENT TOTALLY agree with this very well written article. of course in the India published "Economic Times". I thought this paper had the best coverage of the past couple of weeks. AND....they were not afraid to say what the facts show about China and trade.
I just look at it and say....when you are "starting" at this point....see below..... in a negotiation....you are in an extreme power position. I have done lots and lots of negotiations in my business....often involving big money. It is NOT....."cant we all just get along" or "love is love" or "kindness is everything". It can be a long messy process. Is President Donald Trump’s plan working? EU proposes ‘zero-for-zero’ tariff policy. Here’s what it is https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...what-it-is/articleshow/120069296.cms?from=mdr
Another favorite little article a few days ago. Has China begun to blink in Trump tariff face-off? https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ump-tariff-face-off/articleshow/120170432.cms MY COMMENT I see it as virtually an impossibility that when it is all said and done.....we will be worse off or the same as before. We will be significantly better off.
The past couple of weeks were tough for most investors. I believe that most people, even in investing, look at events and things though the lens of their politics. I don't think most people can help it. I have never had that problem.....I look at everything through a lens focused on....BUSINESS. I even look at political events with a primary focus on business and NOT politics...or my political bias.
Of course: Positive Volatility Still Calls for an Even Keel Knee-jerk reactions aren’t your friend on good days or bad. https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...itive-volatility-still-calls-for-an-even-keel (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "What a difference a day makes! After a four-day, -12.1% slide as the S&P 500 digested “Liberation Day” tariffs and various retaliatory measures, the index jumped 9.5% in price terms Wednesday. Markets, it seems, were so happy that President Trump delayed all reciprocal tariffs except China’s for 90 days that they notched the ninth-biggest up day in history. We see one simple lesson here: Volatility cuts both ways. And our counsel is the same as it was after last Thursday’s knee-jerk drop: Stay cool. Excessive fear wasn’t the right response after the sharp downswing, and greed or high hope isn’t the right response today. Maybe the correction is over now, and the bull market is resuming with gusto. That would be great! But stocks have swung hard, both ways, on utterly unpredictable policy pronouncements. Therefore, we can’t rule out more unpredictability and more swings between panic and rapture. Exhibit 1 shows you the 10 biggest S&P 500 daily jumps. Look at the years. 1929. 1931. 1939 2008. 2020. These were all periods of acute crisis and panic. Many big days paired with gut-wrenching down days. Some, of course, were in young bull markets, like September 1932 or March 1933. Exhibit 1: The Checkered History of Amazing Days Source: Finaeon, Inc., as of 4/9/2025. S&P 500 price return on the days listed. The 10th-biggest, March 24, 2020, was indeed the first day of a new bull market. It was a lightning-fast turnaround, following history’s fastest and shortest bear market. That bear market was an exception to the general rule. Conventional wisdom calls any drop of -10% to -20% a correction and any of -20% or greater a bear market. But in our view, speed and qualitative factors also matter. Corrections are usually short and sharp. Bear markets usually grind lower and last far longer. Corrections swing hard on sentiment as fear overshoots reality. Bear markets typically have identifiable fundamental causes that markets justly price in. The bear market in 2020 was correction-like in speed, bear market-like in magnitude and had a fundamental cause: COVID lockdowns, which caused severe recession and longer-lasting disruptions. Markets had to price that in a hurry. They assessed the damage, registered worst-case scenarios and then moved on. This time, stocks have similarly had to digest tariff news at warp speed. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were bigger and worse than anything he signaled on the campaign trail or since. Hence, they were worse than what markets pre-priced. That forced stocks to rapidly discount the new tariffs and global response. But as we wrote last week, markets weren’t yet weighing the high likelihood that tariffs would prove unworkable and illegal and/or that deals would supersede them. We thought these potential paths left big upside surprise in store as reality ended up better than expected. To us, this appeared a correction-like overreaction to legitimately bad news. Since then, several legal challenges have begun. The Senate has pushed back. Customs data revealed tariff collections in March vastly undershot expectations. Several nations scrambled to cut deals and offered big concessions. And now, Wednesday, we got the 90-day pause, which seems to be a precursor to deals and may lead to trade barriers overall falling. That happy surprise forced markets to reckon immediately with better-than-expected outcomes. But we still have the same basic, underlying reality: Policy is moving swiftly and unpredictably. It would be great if this were March 24, 2020 all over again and it was all sunlit uplands from here. But we are painfully aware of what happened another time the US government took big, decisive, unpredictable actions. We refer to September 2008, the month the Fed and Treasury dismantled Wall Street as we knew it during the financial crisis. That September 15, a Monday, the S&P fell -4.7% in price terms after the government forced Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy.[ii] Another -4.7% drop arrived the 17th, the day the US government sacked AIG’s CEO.[iii] Then we got a two-day rise that topped 8%.[iv] It brought relief. But it wasn’t an all-clear. Volatility continued, leading to one of the worst single days in history: September 29’s -8.8% slide as Congress rejected the initial TARP plan.[v] More big up days and big down days followed. That lovely, 11.6% jump on October 13, 2008?[vi] Precursor to a -9.0% slide on the 15th.[vii] We aren’t telling this to panic you. Far from it. We are simply trying to teach a timeless lesson: Panic selling can quickly morph to aggressive buying and sometimes back again as algorithms and emotions rule and liquidity is low. Keeping a cool head and even keel is vital during these swings. As is keeping a longer perspective, focused on the likely reality over the next 3 – 30 months and how that meshes with current expectations. From here, it won’t surprise us if people start focusing more on the trade war with China, given Trump upped those tariffs again today. With Vietnam in the 90-day reprieve club, transshipping remains very attractive, likely preserving some positive surprise power. Stocks are still down from February’s highs, and we still think reality is likely to go better than the worst-case scenarios that still preoccupy the world. However, we could also be doing this all over again in 90 days. Or the administration could announce something totally unexpected. Again. You can’t hit a moving target, tempting as it may be to try. Sometimes, we must all accept that things are predictably unpredictable. Trying to dance around any of this will raise the risk of getting whipsawed—selling at a low and buying back in after the recovery. That is a very, very hard thing to come back from, with missed returns you can’t get back without taking undue risk (which can go very, very wrong). Staying patient, remaining in a strategy designed to reach your longer-term goals and focused on that longer term isn’t easy for all, but it is still the wisest move." MY COMMENT So true......
