The S&P 500 kicked off Q2 like most of us guys during their first time during… err on the job site—sweaty, nervous, but somehow still managing to get the work done. The index closed up 0.38% Tuesday to 5,633.07 in a session that looked like it was being traded by someone with a Red Bull addiction and a broken mouse. The Nasdaq did even better, up 0.87% at 17,449.89. The Dow, on the other hand, was flat as a pancake and about as interesting. 

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For the most part, today was the same old story regarding “Trump’s tariff rollout”. We know it’s coming. We just don’t know how bad it’s gonna be. President Trump has promised a fresh round of “reciprocal tariffs” that are supposed to drop Wednesday, and Wall Street’s reaction so far has been a mix of cautious optimism and full-blown anxiety. Think “I’m not mad, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to obliterate the supply chain.”

Until then though, investors are clinging to whatever scraps of good news they can find. Enter: Tesla (finally). Tesla, which spent Q1 getting body-slammed by reality (down over 30% YTD), decided to remind everyone it still has a pulse. Shares jumped 3.6% on Tuesday ahead of its March delivery numbers, which are expected to drop Wednesday. Honestly, if Elon shows up with anything above “total disaster,” the stock might rip just out of sheer relief.

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Meanwhile in degenerate land, AppLovin, the redheaded stepchild of adtech and AI-fueled YOLO trades, popped 6.5% on Tuesday. Why? Because it’s still breathing. That’s it. That’s the tweet. For more context, after getting smoked for fraud allegations, AppLovin is back on trader watchlists as the Nasdaq’s comeback kid. Was there news? Nope. Did anyone care? Also no. This is the part of the cycle where “absence of bad news” = “rocket ship emoji.” 

As for FAANG+M (or whatever dumb acronym we’re using now), this batch mostly caught a bid. Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet all rose more than 1%. Nvidia, Amazon, Apple—also green. However, the Nasdaq’s been down more than 10% YTD, so don’t mistake Tuesday’s bounce for a recovery. It’s more like the market saw the edge of the cliff, said “nah,” and took one step back. For now. 

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On the other side of the scoreboard, Johnson & Johnson dropped 7% after a judge rejected their latest attempt to settle tens of thousands of cancer-related lawsuits tied to their talcum powder. You know, the one they swore didn’t cause cancer. Until it did. Then they tried to bankruptcy-hack their way out of it. Judge said no. Investors said “we’re out.” The stock said “embrace the suck”. 

In the end of today's madness (or lack thereof), the S&P may have closed green, but under the hood it’s clear: investors are trying to find everything and anything to stay horned up. Now only time will tell when the next death blow will occur, but for now, tech is clawing back ground, Tesla’s trying to convince us it’s still cool, and AppLovin is somehow not dead. Fun times. Until next time, friends… 

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.

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Stocks.News holds positions in Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Tesla, and Johnson & Johnson as mentioned in the article.