Today’s stock market (Wall Street) rally from the 90 day tariff pause. And as if it weren’t obvious enough, the convicted felon wrote “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY” on his own social media platform. Under a normal administration, none of this would be ethical and there would be intense calls for investigations/testifying in front of Congress regarding the ethics as well as the reckless implementation. Nothing will happen of course because every single enforcement agency is now captured with loyalists overseeing them (including the Securities and Exchange Commission).
Simply put, this is classic “pump and dump” taking place under the guise of these off and on tariff announcements (except China which came back last night with an 84% retalitory tariff which the Felon retaliated with a 125% tariff). HFT algorithms again can move the market rapidly in a “shoot first, and deal with the actual fundamentals later” fashion.
I also previously mentioned the likes of Ackman and Musk criticizing the tariffs (chalking part of that up to being performative signaling (like to send a signal to those who knew from the inside what was going to happen, to cover short positions and take up long positions to ride the market back up). When the futures were green or barely in the red pre-market today, it didn’t seem right considering the bond market reaction (where some country was dumping them versus the usual “flight to quality” response that occurs during periods of uncertainty with the stock market).
The U.S. was staring down a self-imposed catastrophic trifecta (tanking stock market, tanking bond market, and a weakening USD) as a result of the way this tariff tradewar has been rolled out. The dumping of U.S. treasuries is telling; the U.S. (under this regime and for the foreseeable future) is unreliable and untrustworthy. That damage is going to be long term. The tanking of treasuries also has the potential to have the USD depreciated as the world reserve currency (which as noted before, is a high level objective of the PayPal mafia – Musk, Sacks, and Thiel).
These haphazardly applied tariffs aren’t going to do the global economy any good either (the U.S. economy will be one of the biggest losers though because all of this is signaling “do not trust the U.S.”) until other countries (excluding the U.S.) can negotiate new trade agreements with each other. The convicted felon is simply going to keep playing this game (off and on tariff threats and try to get trade partners to call/meet to negotiate) in order to control that narrative (like what he did today). Basically, the wheels are in motion to accomplish these objectives and the media (including the financial ones), are NOT reporting it this way (just as they aren’t pushing this entire thing as a hostile dismantling to the U.S. government and existing economic order).
Unsurprising after the tariff pause was announced, Ackman lavished praise on the felon (the pause being “executed perfectly”) for putting out the fire (one that he started by lighting a fire, burning the house, and having a partially burned house – the house is still heavily damaged as a result you clown). Yeah right. The prior days sell off (shorting) and todays rally from the tariff pause, has the hallmarks of the market being manipulated (shorts being able to cover and pick up equities for a short term trading play). Take a look at Apple. Even with the added tariffs to China (exempted from this pause), it rallied. The market technicals are all over the place right now (make no mistakes, lows and support levels from this recent volatility will need to be re-tested).
This 90 day pause (if it sticks), is going to be a 90 day period of trading. Then the process gets repeated again if agreements aren’t negotiated by then (and the felon wants other countries to be making calls and/or having meetings because it feeds the performative narrative that he is striking deals). World leaders are just being played at this point versus having the guts to say “enough is enough”, and ostracisizing this U.S. regime. Because they would have the upper hand in the end by deeply damaging the U.S. ability to have any leverage.
In this environment, caveat emptor. The buying opportunities presented aren’t long term viable right now because there is a bubble (AI) and this recent tariff induced sell off was no where close to capitulation (and then all of the technical aspects with re-testing lows, re-testing support levels/moving averages, and then consolidation). My last “stink bid” change looks very wrong now (because of this pause), but I am going to leave it in place. What this current market environment is good for is trading it both ways including the options market if you have the time to watch it/keep track of the news as close as possible.
