Hood Traders Hit Trump With the Stephen A. Special… Tesla Inches Up on Two Vague Elon Tweets

At this point, Trump’s giving off serious “movie bully who never actually throws a punch” energy. You know the guy from every 2000s Disney movie that talks a big game, knocks books out of hands, maybe pins someone to a locker… but when it’s go-time? Just grunts, puffs his chest, and says, “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today.” That’s how Wall Street sees him now: the tariff tough guy who never lands a hit.

For instance, this week alone, he fired off 22 strongly worded “don’t make me come over there” letters to world leaders, proposing new tariff rates with an August 1st or else tone. Brazil caught the biggest backhand (a proposed 50% tariff on all imports) because of an “unfair trade relationship.” (Or maybe because their ex-president is on trial for his own version of Jan. 6 cosplay. If there’s one thing Trump can’t stand, it’s someone stealing his favorite bit.) Relax, it’s just a joke.

So how did Wall Street (and every retail trader with a Robinhood account) respond? The same way Stephen A. Smith responded in that now-legendary First Take clip: “I’m here to tell you right now… we don’t care. We don’t care.” (And neither did the market.)

The Dow jumped 267 points, the S&P 500 hit an all-time intraday high, and the Nasdaq notched another record, pushing past even the AI driven high from Nvidia’s brief stint at a $4 trillion valuation yesterday. In other words, investors are calling Trump a wimp.

Meanwhile, Tesla jumped 2.5% after Elon dropped a few vague promises… robotaxis expanding in Austin this weekend and possibly the Bay Area soon (“subject to regulatory approvals,” aka whenever the DMV finds the paperwork). Oh, and Grok, his unhinged AI chatbot, is coming to Tesla dashboards by next week (What could possibly go wrong? Imagine getting rear-ended while your car shouts out slurs you didn’t even know existed.)

Bitcoin exploded past $113K, crushing over $300 million in shorts. The risk-on crowd is clearly back, and judging by this rally, they’ve either made peace with high interest rates… or blacked them out like it’s The Hangover (waking up next to a tiger, a missing tooth, and a portfolio full of leverage they definitely don’t remember opening).

MP Materials went nuclear too, surging 45% after the Pentagon wrote them a $400 million check to secure rare earth minerals for missiles and EVs. (Yes, Uncle Sam is now their biggest shareholder. No, we don’t get a dividend. But hey, your taxes helped buy some neodymium.)

Even the home construction ETF (ITB) is up 5% on the week, despite mortgage rates ticking up for the first time in over a month. So yeah, different day but same story. Trump can keep tossing around tariff threats, but unless he actually follows through, the market’s gonna keep laughing at him in the lunchroom… mouth full of tendies, portfolio full of green.

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.