WTF is happening now?

Your daily review of what happened since the last time we talked.

> Trade war: Trump is now considering slashing tariffs on Chinese goods as a way to de-escalate the trade war that he started. He said that a deal could happen “pretty quickly”, but also postured that while the tariffs could drop “substantially”, they “won’t be zero.” China refused to take delivery of Boeing planes.

> Dow: The DJIA is up about 500 points as of this writing, but that’s down from the 1000-point high from near the start of the trading session that was prompted by Trump’s signals that he might blink and seek a trade deal with China.   

> Gold: JP Morgan forecasts gold to cross the $4,000/ounce mark by Q2 2026. The spot gold price dropped almost 4% overnight on the news that Trump might cave and seek lower tariffs.

> Bitcoin: Bitcoin’s price is within striking distance of $100k, and is pumping now with the prospect of a potential trade deal between China and the US.     

MB bottom-line: You know when a big wave hits the beach, and the water sucks back out into the ocean? That’s what right now feels like to me. The overall stance of the markets is “down”, with severe down days followed by severe up days, but the general trend is still for the market to give up more value than it gains back. I’m still waiting for the routine US economic data for April to come out, and we’re only a few days into Trump’s 90-day pause on global tariffs. There’s a Canadian election going down with a skilled economist as the front-runner, and we still have very little insight into what China is thinking or how it will play Trump’s softening stance. Trump’s inner circle (probably) has enough information to make profitable bets before the major announcements come out, but this feels like a very dangerous market to be making medium-term bets without constant oversight.

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