Stock Market Today: President Trump Reboots the Tariff Trade
A broad consensus that markets hate uncertainty more than anything else is being tested on an almost daily basis in 2025.
President Donald Trump signed his Big Beautiful Bill during a Fourth of July ceremony at the White House Friday afternoon, satisfying his self-imposed deadline as well as the market's desire for some certainty, fiscal or otherwise.
By Monday morning, markets were retreating again as the president returned to raising questions about tariffs and trade.
Equity futures pointed to a bearish open after President Trump posted about Wednesday's tariff deadline on Truth Social.
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"I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th," Trump revealed late Sunday night.
The president followed up by giving notice that "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff," adding "there will be no exceptions to this policy."
Absent fresh incoming data and with another reporting season still a week away, investors, traders and speculators parsed the president's posts for guidance on discounting the present value of future cash flows for publicly traded companies.
"The market went into the holiday weekend on a roll," observes E*Trade Managing Director Chris Larkin, "but with the jobs report surprise and the big, beautiful bill in the rearview mirror, bullish catalysts may be more elusive this week."
Larkin notes that seasonal indicators suggest early July is historically the most bullish portion of the month but that the S&P 500 had already rallied more than 2% off the new record high the index established June 26.
"Given this week's light economic calendar," Larkin concludes, "tariffs may once again become the front-and-center issue." The earnings calendar is also light this week, though a new reporting season begins in earnest July 15.
By the closing bell, the S&P 500 was off 0.8% at 6,229, the Nasdaq Composite had shed 0.9% to 20,412, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.9% at 44,406.
Musk vs Trump
Tesla (TSLA) was among the day's biggest losers, sliding as much as 8.4% and closing down 6.8% after CEO Elon Musk said he plans to form a political party in protest of Trump's new signature legislation.
In addition to the specter of presidential reprisal, TSLA stock is once more subject to suspicion that the CEO has his attention on issues other than electric vehicles, robotaxis, space rockets and/or utility-scale renewable energy storage.
"Elon Musk announced he is forming a new 'American Party' to challenge the binary Republican/ Democrat American political system," writes Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates. "Musk was the largest personal donor of the '24 election, very helpful to Trump's win."
Navellier also notes that Musk was "a very vocal opponent" of the Big Beautiful Bill because of his concern about the national debt.
"Investors expect Trump to punish Musk for turning on his bill and wonder how he'll have time to manage his many businesses and develop the unlikely plan of a new political party that could possibly have any impact on such a strongly established political system," Navellier concludes.
Nvidia (NVDA) also put up a red number, slipping 0.7% but maintaining its place atop the global market capitalization rankings at $3.859 trillion as of Monday's closing bell.
NVDA stock notched another new all-time closing high Thursday at $159.34 and is now up 17.4% since its May 28 earnings announcement.
Apple (AAPL) still holds the all-time market cap record of $3.915 trillion, established December 26, 2024.
AAPL stock was down 1.7% and was among the 25 of 30 Dow Jones stocks to close lower Monday.
Amazon.com (AMZN) was the only one of the old Magnificent 7 stocks to post a green number Monday, the ecommerce giant inching up 0.1%.
Meta Platforms (META) was off 0.1%, Microsoft (MSFT) slipped 0.2%, and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) was down 1.5%.
Netflix (NFLX) – often named as a potential replacement for Tesla in the Mag 7 lineup and recently cited as one of the next stocks to split – was down 0.6% Monday but still counts among the day's outperformers
That's even after Seaport Research Partners analyst David Joyce cut his rating on the communications services stock from Buy to Neutral (or Hold).
Joyce did not share a 12-month target price for NFLX but noted management "needs time to execute against the expectations in advertising, aggregating, launching experiences, and expanding share again."
CRWV stock is as hot as ever
CoreWeave (CRWV) was among the hot upcoming IPOs to watch earlier this year and has certainly validated the adjective and its inclusion on the list.
CRWV is up 299.3% since its March 28 initial public offering, even accounting for Monday's 3.3% slide.
Management of the AI cloud company announced an agreement to acquire Core Scientific (CORZ) for $9 billion. CoreWeave leases data center space from Core Scientific.
CEO Michael Intrator said the acquisition accelerates CoreWeave's strategy to deploy AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads at scale and enables the company to boost operating efficiency, reduce risk, and solidify its growth trajectory.
CORZ closed Monday's trading session down 17.6%.
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