Nightmare on Wall Street

http://archive.today/2025.04.09-103921/https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-trump-tariffs-trade-war-04-09-25/card/treasury-rout-is-scariest-spectacle-in-markets-75KBBXT68eFHYYxT7umQ

Treasury Rout Is Scariest Spectacle in Markets: Heard on the Street

5 Likes

Will Palantir go up or down?

The Captain

1 Like

Yes.

4 Likes

A good answer that requires three strategies, one for up, one for down, and a third one for in-between.

The Captain

3 Likes

It’s a new territory for me as well. My first instinct was to buy a volatility index swap. But it turns out only people who know what they are doing trade those and nobody wants to sell me that.

I feel tempted to do day trading-like activities. Like I sold some of my S&P 500 puts on Monday as they’ve reached 400% gains, now I feel like I could buy some back today. It feels wrong and against everything one learns about investing, but the market is thrashing like a wounded animal.

I’ve already liquidated a big portion of my portfolio 6 weeks ago https://discussion.fool.com/t/investment-avenues-in-2025 and I think I’m mostly going to sit the madness out with a little derivate trading against the volatility on the side.

8 Likes

Gift Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/politics/trump-tariff-pause-be-cool.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-k4.-YUs.lrf7TEFSJgMU&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused Mr. Trump to blink on Wednesday afternoon and pause his “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, according to four people with direct knowledge of the president’s decision.

Asked to explain the decision, Mr. Trump told reporters: “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”

Behind the scenes, senior members of Mr. Trump’s team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president’s team, including Vice President JD Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.

After his reversal on social media, Mr. Trump’s team was put in the unenviable position of trying to spin the media that this was the plan all along, a brilliant strategy straight out of the pages of the president’s best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal.” Mr. Bessent went so far as to deny that the bond market had driven the change.

4 Likes

Palantir PE is still astronomical. 457 today on Yahoo.

Why can’t these guys grow earnings?

Clearly a momentum stock. Lots of hat; not much cattle.

2 Likes

Anyone who thinks this was all part of some grand negotiation tactic has a screw loose of course. This was a great example of a really bad policy wreaking so much havoc, so quickly, that reversal was the only way out. The Orange One did this to save his hide, nothing more.

It was the right call to put out the house fire, but the media needs to start pointing out that he is the arsonist too.

And now, today, markets are down heavy again. If yesterday was the rug pull, today is the rug pull of the rug pull. :frowning:

5 Likes

The up part of the question was rhetorical, correct.

Nah the Dow is off a massive amount again today. The house is back on fire as if the flames had never quit.

the day investors realize that we are still stuck with 10% global tariffs, which is where we were last week Friday at market close (with the S&P at 5074).

And of course, 145% tariffs now on China. Realistically, we should close below 5000 today but few can trust Trump to actually keep tariffs that high for very long.

So… does this 90 day pause give the world time to restructure their trade without us?

1 Like

Really, 10% tariffs aren’t bad. 10% is a revenue tariff, not a protectionist tariff.

Steve

1 Like

The intent is to give everyone time to bend over for TIG.

Steve

1 Like

No, it is a DUMB tariff. We have tariffs on countries for which we have a trade SURPLUS which is idiotic.

Everything about this is bad. Nothing was done with any wisdom or intellect.

10 Likes

A company with 0 earnings would theoretically have infinite valuation. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s overvalued. With tech growth stock you want them to put a lot of their revenue into R&D which pushes their E towards zero and thus P/E to infinity. You have to assess their free cash flow instead to compare to other stocks.

2 Likes

10% tariffs are still really high. I mean, they’re lower than some of the more absurd numbers that were thrown out there by the Administration. But a 10% across-the-board, every-nation-on-earth tariff is still sizable, and will definitely have some impact on trade flows.

3 Likes

If a govenment official announced he was imposing a 10% sales tax overnight, without discussion and without the legislature’s involvement there would be hell to pay.

Anyone who thought this is over hasn’t thought about it or possibly doesn’t have the capacity to think about it.

6 Likes

Non issue. Off target. No idea why this is stated at all.

The tax cut is having investors wonder if the debt will be paid off. The interest on the debt and the rolling debt.

No I am not a paid financial person. Those who are work cluelessly.

This is because half the country is too financially illiterate to know that an import tariff is a tax on them, because Right Wing Media refuses to tell them the truth. They do not understand a tariff is a tax that THEY pay with THEIR money.

This, from the crowd that hates taxes. It’s unbelievable.

7 Likes

Surely we‘ll hear that again going forward.

2 Likes