Trump’s Tariff Season 2 Is Here… Elon’s Powdered Wig Moment Prints $1.4B for The Bears

Question: “Hey Siri, what’s Trump’s favorite song?”

Answer: "If I Could Turn Back Time By Cher”

Specifically to April… right before he nuked the markets with tariff threats and gave every 50-year-old man in America flashbacks to 2008 and the sound of Jim Cramer screaming on live TV. As I warned you over the weekend (yep, the tariff pause ends Wednesday… full breakdown here), we’re back in the danger zone.

And right on cue… stocks kicked off the week like someone shouted “recession” in a crowded AMC. The Dow dropped 536 points. The S&P 500 slid 1%. And the Nasdaq also fell 1%. Dragged lower by a full-on Tesla meltdown… down 7% after Elon Musk announced he’s launching a new political party. (Because when your stock is already slipping, why not throw on a powdered wig and go full Founding Father on X?)

But Musk’s “America Party” announcement wasn’t the only thing rattling markets. Trump spent his Sunday evening firing off a batch of freshly signed “Trade Partner” letters… or, more likely, dictating them while someone else printed them on official letterhead. Starting August 1, Japan and South Korea are getting punched with 25% tariffs. South Africa? Try 30%. And Myanmar and Laos drew the short straw with 40% (no idea why, maybe they subtweeted Donald Jr.). If you're wondering who’s next, so is everyone else. Trump warned that any country aligning with the “anti-American policies of BRICS” (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) can expect a bonus 10% tariff.

Again, this all drops just as Trump’s tariff “pause” from April expires on July 9. Back then, he gave countries 90 days to strike a deal. Since then, only the UK, Vietnam, and maybe China (depending on how generous your definition of “framework” is) have reached anything resembling an agreement. Everyone else has a ticking clock and a President who’s live-tweeting policy like a teenage girl on Instagram.

Back to Tesla. Musk announcing his own political party was already enough to make investors shift in their seats, but Trump’s tax bill axing EV credits hit where it hurts… future sales. Toss in the ongoing Musk–Trump feud, and even the diehards stopped drinking the kool aid. In response, short sellers made out like villains in a heist movie… pocketing $1.4 billion in a single day.

Over in AI land, Citi raised its price target on Nvidia to $190, citing growing demand from sovereign governments… yes, countries are now competing in the GPU Hunger Games (like the olympics). Citi says Nvidia could pull in billions as nations scramble to build out national compute stacks. And with shares already up 12% in the past month, Nvidia’s now eyeballing a $4 trillion market cap.

And then there’s oil. Prices ticked higher Monday… even as OPEC announced its fourth straight production increase: 548,000 barrels per day for August. Normally, more supply = lower prices. But demand’s hanging tough, and the market doesn’t know what to do with itself. That said, Goldman’s still holding firm: $59 Brent by Q4, $56 in 2026.

On Main Street, retail sentiment is high as a kite (although that probably changed after today). The latest AAII survey shows bullishness hitting 45%, the highest since December 2024. Bearishness slid to 33%. Translation? People are feeling good… maybe too good. So be ready to BTMD as this next tariff season 2 plays out. If nothing major shifts by Wednesday, don’t be shocked if we get a sharp 4–5% drop in a single day.

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.

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