March 13, 2025

Markets:

Stock futures came off of their lows on Thursday morning after an encouraging inflation report.

The Nasdaq’s decline on Thursday morning was a reversal from the day before. Beleaguered tech stocks caught a bid Wednesday as investors snapped up shares, lifting the S&P 500 higher by 0.5%. The Nasdaq Composite also popped 1.2% thanks to gains from Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The 30-stock Dow was an outlier, however, notching a third straight losing day and falling 0.2%.

Futures extended their selling after a fresh threat of tariffs from the President Donald Trump.

On Thursday morning, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to threaten 200% tariffs on all alcoholic products coming from countries in the European Union in retaliation for the bloc’s 50% tariff on whisky. “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.,” he wrote.

February’s reading of the consumer price index — a wide-ranging measure of costs across the U.S. economy — came in softer than expected on Wednesday morning. Headline inflation rose 0.2% from the prior month and 2.8% on an annual basis.

The report may have eased traders’ concerns about the direction of the economy and the impact tariffs could have on inflation. Indeed, President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect on Wednesday, and Canada slapped a 25% retaliatory levy on more than $20 billion of U.S. goods.

Though market strategists have been watching for a technical bounce after the recent sell off, some say the latest inflation print likely isn’t enough to lead to a sizable rebound. Concerns over Trump’s trade policies remain a key hangover on investor sentiment, and they throw into question how the Federal Reserve may proceed on interest rates.

Portfolio:

Yesterday we say different price activity and begin to see the markets continue to shrug off tariff headlines which implies we may finally have priced it all in and can now move forward. Historically, the last two weeks have been super bullish. Curious to see if we head that route even with the majority seeming so bearish still. Overall, SPY above 550 is still super bullish. Watching this level closely.

We enter the session holding setups in APPS, PLTU, and TSLL. We would love to see the QQQ get back above 480 and SPY above 560 and hold. Lines we are looking for. Stay cautious here as we see this develop.