Trump: After a long time of consideration, I have decided to name Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chairman… 

Traders: Aight, Imma head out now… 

Happy Friday to everyone except the stock market, which apparently decided Trump’s Fed pick was about as thrilling as the Browns hiring an old man in jeans and a sportcoat after firing Kevin Stefanski. Technically competent? Sure. Inspiring? Absolutely not.

To be fair, Kevin Warsh is not some random Twitter reply guy. He’s a former Fed governor, well-liked in market circles, and widely viewed as someone who won’t turn the central bank into a Truth Social replies department. Trump even said Warsh could go down as one of the greatest Fed chairs ever (which is what he also said about Mike Pence before… well, all that happened).

As for the only opinion that actually matters (Mr. Market), he mostly nodded in approval. The dollar popped, yields behaved, and Wall Street’s takeaway was basically, “Alright, at least there’s adult supervision.” But stocks? Stocks said “cool story” and proceeded to get dumped.

By the close, the S&P 500 fell about 0.5%, the Dow dropped roughly 240 points (-.3%) and the Nasdaq showed it still wasn’t over the tragedy that was Microsoft's earnings yesterday, sliding over 1%. At one point, all three were down more than 1% intraday. (Nothing to see here… everything’s fine).

And all the folks who bought silver and gold at ATH’s… you might want to sit down for this one (albeit probably shirtless). Precious metals did their best impersonation of Eric Adam’s “NYC Token.” Gold dropped around 9-11%, silver got obliterated to the tune of 25-30%. 

Once Warsh entered the Fed chat, dollar-debasement panic evaporated… and so did the urge to hide wealth in shiny objects. Shiny object syndrome never pays does it?

As I referenced earlier, Big Tech continued its ongoing “are we cooked?” arc (sponsored by Bill Gates). Apple beat earnings, sold a ton of iPhones, and still slid about 2% because Tim Cook dared to whisper the words “margin pressure.” 

Meanwhile, Microsoft was still being stretchered off the field after losing $350B in market cap the day prior.

Someone call a doctor… because Verizon is showing signs of life. The self proclaimed top wireless network ripped more than 11% after delivering strong guidance, marking its best day since 2008. Take that Ryan Reynolds (stocks down 18% over the last 5 years).

Meanwhile, Trump decided Friday was the perfect time to dust off his favorite party game… tariff roulette. He toyed with the idea of a 50% levy on Canadian aircraft imports, threatened to mess with jet certifications from companies like Bombardier, and put Mexico on watch over oil shipments to Cuba.

But to end on a positive note… yeah, the close was ugly, but the Russell 2000 is up more than 5% on the month. Microcaps are moving again, which means the “stonks only go up” memes are warming up in every degen’s computer as we speak.

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

Market Gossip

>Federal Agents Arrest Don Lemon Over Minnesota Church Protest (New York Times): Today might be a good day to turn off social media and touch grass…

>Trump orders IndyCar race on streets of Washington for America 250 celebration (New York Post): The British mind could never comprehend… ‘Merica.

>Jeffrey Epstein says Bill Gates caught sexually transmitted disease from 'Russian girls'... then suggested secretly slipping Melinda antibiotics, new emails in DOJ release claim (Daily Mail): Matt McCusker and Shane Gillis are gonna have a field day with this one.

>Partial government shutdown on track for Saturday after Senate vote on funding deal stalled (CNBC): Some men just want to watch the world burn. Unfortunately, these men (and women) live in DC.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Microsoft, Apple, and Verizon as mentioned in the article.