Wall Street on Friday ended the week slightly lower, as sentiment was dented by trade war escalation. Still, U.S. stocks are at record levels, and the benchmark S&P 500 index this week posted a new intraday high of 6290.22 points.
Donald Trump’s tariff moves once again dominated headlines. The President issued letters to several countries outlining tariff rates against them, including major trading partners such as Japan, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, and the Philippines. He also targeted copper imports with a 50% tariff and said pharmaceuticals could be charged a levy of as much as 200%.
This week, the focus will shift from tariff to second quarter earnings season, which will kick off with reports from major banks and other household names. Companies that will report quarterly results this week include – JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America – along with Johnson & Johnson, TSMC, American Express, Pepsico and Netflix.
For the week, the S&P shed 0.3%, the Dow fell 1%, and the Nasdaq slipped 0.1%.
Future Wealth’s View
Wall Street is slowly but surely becoming desensitized to Donald Trump tariffs. This week began with a new broadside on Canada barely a week after restarting trade talks. He threatened a 35% levy on some Canadian goods. Trump didn’t stop there, also threatening to double blanket tariffs globally to 20%. And then, he threatened to impose 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, sending the country’s currency and assets plunging. Not content with sending copper markets into a spiral, Trump used trade policy to take issue with Brazil’s treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has long seen Trump as his ticket out of legal limbo.
But, Wall Street looked past all of Trump’s antics and pushed Nvidia to become the first $4 trillion market cap company. Nvidia as a public company is now worth more than the stock markets of entire countries, like Canada, the U.K., France, and Germany. As we enter Q2 earnings season, expectations from the Mag 7 companies and every other tech company have climbed to levels not seen before putting pressure on those who are not keeping up with the AI narrative.
The next four weeks of Q2 results from all the major US corporations will provide the answer.