Weekly Market Pulse: The End Of The Beginning

2025-04-14 07:50:00 ET

Summary

• The dollar is now down over the last three years and at the very bottom of its recent range.
• The focus has been on the S&P 500 in this selloff, but small cap stocks have taken this the hardest.
• Consumer staples and utilities are the lone winners this year, with technology and consumer discretionary bringing up the rear.

The stock market rallied last week, the S&P 500 up nearly 6%, spurred on by the suspension of some of the tariffs imposed on April 2nd. The “reciprocal” part of the new tariffs was suspended for 90 days, while the 10% universal tariff was retained. Tariffs on China, however, were raised further after they retaliated against President Trump’s previous retaliation for China’s earlier response to the initial tariffs, which were added on to tariffs from Trump’s first term and the Biden administration. Or at least I think so. There is some confusion about whether some countries even have the 10% universal tariff and whether it will be added to the 25% tariffs already imposed on Mexico and Canada (I don’t think so, but who knows?). Just to further confuse things, the administration published a list of exemptions late Friday, after the market closed, for smartphones, laptops, memory chips, and other electronic items from some or maybe all of the tariffs. However, Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, said on Sunday that those items were only exempted because they’ll soon get their own set of specific tariffs, probably on the semiconductors they all contain. Maybe in a month or two. Or not, depending on how an investigation ordered by President Trump comes out....

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