Morning Briefing
April 9, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury is up 13 basis points to 4.43% as of noon New York time today as bond prices fell on strong selling. That’s extraordinary–usually Treasuries rise in price and yields fall when fear stalks Wall Street–and cause for worry. Just a few days ago, the 10-year Treasury had traded below 4%. Yields on the 30-year bond rose significantly today as well, at one point on Wednesday topping 5%.
“The global safe-haven status is in question,” Priya Misra, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Bloomberg.
April 8, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Stocks saw their biggest rally since November 2022. As of 10:30 a.m. New York time Tuesday morning, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 3.80%. The NASDAQ Composite was higher by 4.32%. The CBOE S&P 500 Volatile Index, the VIX “fear index” had dropped 19.6% to a still very elevated 37.6. So what has fueled today’s rally and the turn around from last week’s panic selling?
April 7, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Today, April 7, President Donald Trump threatened additional 50% tariffs on China if it did not rescind its retaliatory trade measures–a 34% tariff, restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and other measures, designed to match the 34% tariff President Trump announced on Chinese good last week
In a post on Truth Social Trump said the U.S. would impose even higher tariffs on China if Beijing did not back down. “If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” the president posted on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”
April 6, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The futures contracts for the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq 100 Index each fell as much as 5% in the early Asian trading. U.S. equity futures plunged, putting the Standard & Poor’s 500 on track for a bear market as the Trump administration dug in on a trade war economists warn will tip the world’s largest economy into recession. Contracts on the S&P 500 Index plunged 3.6% at 6:27 p.m. Sunday in New York, after the underlying index had fallen 10% in the past two days. The rout in futures would leave the index on a pace to fall more than 20% from its February record. Nasdaq 100 Index futures sank 4.4%, after the tech-heavy gauge entered a bear market Friday. Russell 2000 futures lost almost 5%. A big reason for the rout in futures was the failure of the Trump officials speaking on the Sunday talk shows to say anything to demonstrate any re-thinking of the tariffs after the financial markets said, “Hell no” on Thursday and Friday.
April 4, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
That didn’t take long. On Wednesday President Donald Trump announced new 34% tariffs on China’s exports to the United States. Today, Friday, China matched those tariffs with a 34% rate on U.S. exports to China. And slapped new controls on exports of rare earth minerals critical to everything from electric cars to wind turbines. The new tariffs from China will go into effect on April 10, a day after the higher U.S. tariff schedule is scheduled to take effect.
April 3, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility |
After weeks of trying to believe that President Donald Trump wasn’t serious about imposing massive tariffs on the rest of the world, Wall Street heard president Trump do exactly that from the Rose Garden yesterday. And today stocks opened down biggly. At 11:20 a.m. New York time, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was down 4.21%. The NASDAQ Composite and the NASDAQ 100 were lower by 5.24% and 4.64%, respectively. The small cap Russell 2000 had tumbled 4.63%. Shares of Apple (AAPL) were down 8.64%. Nike (NKE) was off 11.79%. Nvidia (NVDA) was lower by 6.66%. Why the huge drop?
April 2, 2025 | AAPL, Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, NKE, WMT |
My first take away from President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden speech on his new global reciprocal tariff plan is that it worse than expected. In some cases shockingly worse.
April 2, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Senate Republicans have unveiled a budget blueprint that includes a $4 trillion (over 10 years) extension of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, an additional $1.5 trillion in further tax reductions, and an increase in the debt ceiling of up to $5 trillion. Senate Republicans say they want to ensure that Congress does not need to vote on the debt ceiling again before the 2026 midterm elections
The Republican-controlled House recently pass a budget framework with $4.5 trillion in total cuts. And a $4 trillion incree in the debt ceiling.
Republicans say they are using accounting that assumes the cost of extending the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts is $0.
April 1, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
U.S.factory activity contracted in March for the first time this year and prices accelerated sharply for a second month. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index declined 1.3 points last month to 49, according to data released Tuesday. In this index readings below 50 indicate contraction.
March 31, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Goldman Sachs’ influential strategist David Kostin has just cut his target for the Standard & Poor’s 500 for a second time this month. (Kostin had first reduced his target from 6,500 on March 11.) He now expects the index to end the year at around 5,700 versus his previous estimate of 6,200. The new target implies a gain of just 2% from Friday’s close. In other words, you’d be better off buying a 6-month Treasury paying 4.23% and holding it to maturity.
March 30, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
It’s not clear who White House advisor Peter Navarro speaks for but on Sunday he spoke up loudly for more tariffs. On Fox News Navarro claimed Sunday that President Donald Trump’s new tariffs would raise more than $6 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade. Exactly why that’s a good idea wasn’t clear from Navarro’s appearance since it would amount to the largest peacetime tax hike in modern U.S. history.
March 28, 2025 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure rose in February at a faster pace than in January. The rate of increase was also greater than economists had expected
