Final Tally: Donnie SHOCKs Investors with 150-Day Tariff Cheat Code… Claude-Blooded Selloff

I’ve got this rule (and it’s probably more psychological than strategic) but anytime we get a big, ugly, “blood in the streets” kind of red day… I buy the f***ing dip like my life depends on it.

Partly because there’s usually a silver lining hiding somewhere in the rubble. And partly because smashing the “buy” button feels healthier than stress-eating and doom-scrolling Fed speeches at 11:47 p.m.

So if we’re choosing to view this through aggressively rose-colored glasses… let me just say this: monday was a YUGE clearance sale.

Between Donnie Tariffhands cranking global tariffs up 10% (then 15% on Saturday) out of pure spite for the U.S. judicial system… and the fine folks over at Citrini Research (who I’m almost certain are shorting everything) publishing a research note suggesting the AI boom could actually destroy the economy and put all our friends and neighbors out on the street… today’s price action stood no chance. 

When the dust finally settled… The S&P (-1.1%), Nasdaq (-1.3%), and the Dow (-1.6%) got sent back to 2025 (again).

A YUGE amount of the selling started when Anthropic rolled out new programming muscle for its Claude Code product… basically telling expensive consulting teams, “Appreciate your service, but the robot’s got this.” IBM dropped 13%, Microsoft fell 3% and CrowdStrike revisited its July 2024 war flashbacks with another -11% wipeout.

Then Citrini decided to pour premium unleaded on the tire fire by suggesting the AI boom could eventually deliver Great Financial Crisis-level 10% unemployment.

This in turn caused investors to dump American Express (-7%) and Mastercard (-6%). Because consumers potentially going homeless doesn’t pay the credit card APYs.

Bitcoin also fell 4% which now puts it below the $65k mark… ironically, just days after the cryptofest that went on at Maro Lago.

Pretty bad right? Yeah, well we’ve haven’t even gotten to Trump's new trade war onslaught.

Buried under a mountain of “tariff” headlines is the REAL piece of news: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 just got activated. That gives Donnie 150 days of tariff authority without Congress needing to lift a finger. Meaning: We may be lining up for a word-for-word remake of March.

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

>Defense Secretary summons Anthropic’s Amodei over military use of Claude (TechCrunch): Benchpressing 315 pounds (allegedly) somehow isn’t the most controversial thing Pete Hegseth has done over the last 48 hours…

>World’s first: US Air Force deploys portable nuclear power station [video] (Electrek): Elon after seeing this headline: Okay, hear me out… data centers, but in the ocean.

>AI Agent OpenClaw Confirms Ban On Bitcoin/Crypto Discussions In Discord (ZeroHedge): Tell me we’re in a crypto bear market without telling me…

>Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Bill Gates told him his big bet on OpenAI would be a flop: ‘Yeah, you’re going to burn this billion dollars’ (Yahoo Finance): Just don’t ask Satya how long it will take to see a profit.

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