If you were anxiously buying and selling stocks in the wake of the Liberation Day market meltdown, you weren’t alone.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found that members of Congress didn’t let the geopolitical crisis stop them from earning serious gains in their personal portfolios. In fact, from April 2 to April 8, as the market experienced its steepest drop since March 2020, more than a dozen members of Congress and their family members made over 700 trades.

Ironically, two members of Congress who have been the most vocal about banning stock trading in the government were buying and selling at a rapid rate: Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Rob Bresnahan (or close members of their family) carried out the most transactions over the period.

In their defense, they both told the WSJ that their financial advisors were at the wheel, and they weren’t personally buying and selling the stocks.

Republicans Jefferson Shreve, Michael McCaul, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as Democrat Julie Johnson were the other most active members making trades, and all told the WSJ an outside money manager was conducting the transactions.

What was Congress buying? The most popular stocks purchased by members of Congress in the days between Liberation Day and the tariff pause were MKS Instruments, Amazon, and Global Payments. Meanwhile, our elected representatives were selling shares of Honeywell, Accenture, and Visa.

Liberating Congress from picking stocks

You might be wondering: How is it legal for our country’s leaders, who are naturally privy to vast amounts of inside information, allowed to have a Robinhood account just like the rest of us?

A slew of bills have been proposed over the years that would ban congressional stock trading and require politicians to hand their portfolios over to blind trusts, but as of now, no new laws that fully end the practice have been passed.

Polling shows that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike support making active trading illegal for members of Congress.—LB

Want to learn more about this issue and also have a good laugh? Our buddies over at Good Work paid Capitol Hill a little visit to see what the heck is going on over there. Here’s what they found out.

🟢 What’s up

• Tesla climbed another 5.67% on signs that Elon Musk and President Trump are mending fences and on hype around the robotaxi reveal this week.
• TSMC rose 2.63% after the semiconductor company reported that its revenue in the month of May rose 39.6% year over year.
• Disney rose 2.65% higher a day after agreeing to purchase Comcast’s stake in streaming service Hulu for $438.7 million. Comcast climbed 2.95%.
• Solar stocks got a bit of hope after the Wall Street Journal reported that tech companies are lobbying Congress to keep clean energy subsidies in the tax and spending bill. SolarEdge rose 11.81%, and Sunrun gained 7.13%.
• Insmed exploded 28.65% thanks to strong results for the biopharma company’s new treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension.
• Casey’s General Store rose 11.59% after the retailer crushed Wall Street’s profit expectations last quarter and raised its dividend.

What’s down

• J.M. Smucker tumbled 15.59% on mixed earnings results and a weaker-than-expected fiscal forecast for the snack foods company.
• McDonald’s lost 1.43% thanks to a double downgrade from Redburn Atlantic analysts, who think the fast food titan’s slowing foot traffic and headwinds from obesity drugs will hurt its growth. That’s the company’s third downgrade in three days.
• Snap fell just 0.12% after the social media company unveiled its new augmented reality glasses.
• Calavo Growers plunged 16.26% after the avocado distributor reported much worse quarterly results than Wall Street was expecting.
• Biopharma stocks Liquidia and United Therapeutics lost 16.87% and 14.32%, respectively, on competitor Insmed’s good news.

Private equity is always on the lookout for its next payday, but lately it’s been hard to find. PE investments have been drying up, while opportunities to divest the business these firms purchase and then turn around have been few and far between—to the point that the industry has begun to sell businesses to themselves.

Retail investors represent a vast, untapped market that private equity would love a piece of. 401(k) portfolios alone have about $12.5 trillion that, until very recently, private equity couldn’t touch. PE is looking to expand even further afield, offering regular investors a chance to own private businesses via new financial instruments like private equity ETFs.

Turns out, that may not be such a great idea—not just for inexperienced investors, but for the PE industry itself. The Wall Street Journal reported that credit ratings agency Moody’s has issued a stark warning for private equity funds trying to sell to retail clients, noting the risks of “reputation loss, heightened regulatory scrutiny and higher costs.”

Whether or not Wall Street heeds this warning remains to be seen. In the last few months alone, titans like State Street, Apollo, BlackRock, Vanguard, Blackstone, and KKR have committed vast amounts of time and money to catching retail investors’ eyes. What’s a little risk when trillions of dollars are on the line?

The 2020s aren’t going to enjoy the same economic boom as the Roaring ‘20s—at least if you ask the World Bank.

The financial institution cut its global economic growth projection for 2025 from 2.7% at the beginning of the year to 2.3% today. That wasn’t all: The World Bank noted that the 2020s are on track for the worst economic growth since the 1960s. Zooming in, the World Bank cut its expectation for US growth this year by a full percentage point down to 1.4%.

If today isn’t your first day reading this newsletter, you’re probably already familiar with the reasons why financial institutions are slashing forecasts left and right: The ongoing trade war has spooked investors, and all the uncertainty is causing the pillars holding up the economy to wobble.

“International discord—about trade, in particular—has upended many of the policy certainties that helped shrink extreme poverty and expand prosperity after the end of World War II,” wrote Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Indermit Gill in the report. “But this moment offers a chance to reset the agenda—with renewed global cooperation, restored fiscal responsibility, and a relentless focus on creating jobs,” he added.

The end of an era?

Sure, the World Bank is just one hater. But it’s far from the only economic powerhouse forecasting clouds on the horizon.

Just last month, the International Monetary Fund lowered its forecast for US economic growth in 2025 by 0.9% to a measly 1.8%. Its global projection wasn’t any better: The IMF slashed its global growth outlook for 2025 down to 2.8%—the slowest rate of growth since 2020.

In addition, the World Trade Organization said last month it expects a 0.2% drop in global trade this year.

The big picture: We get it, those are a lot of scary numbers. But it's by no means doomsday, and fear shouldn’t stop you from building a diversified portfolio.

“The potential for market swings continues,” explained UBS Chief Investment Officer Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi in a note yesterday. “But in our view, this should not impede investors putting cash to work, especially given our continued expectation for US equity gains over 12 months and that both interest rates and cash returns are set to fall as the year progresses.”—LB

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the apparent front-runner to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
• Mom and pop shops are feeling pretty good these days, as small business optimism rose for the first time in five months.
• Uber is planning to test self-driving cars in London.
• Boeing booked its most airplane orders since December 2023.
• Paramount announced it’s firing 3.5% of its global workforce as its cost-cutting program accelerates.
• Meta Platforms paid $14.8 billion for a 49% stake in AI startup Scale AI.

Tomorrow delivers a big report investors everywhere will be paying close attention to: The Consumer Price Index, aka CPI. The May report should tell us how tariffs are affecting inflation, and whether or not we should anticipate rising prices from here, or if fears of rampant inflation have been overstated.

Headline CPI rose 2.3% year over year in April, while core CPI, which cuts out volatile fuel and food prices, rose 2.8% annually. Economists are expecting a slight increase in both figures: Headline forecasts call for a 2.5% annual increase in May, while core estimates are closer to 2.9%.

As for earnings, it’s pretty quiet out there. That said, there is one interesting company worth watching.

Before the open

• Chewy may sell pet food and toys for your favorite furry friend, but don’t be fooled by this seemingly simple business. The stock is up over 100% in the last 12 months thanks to some very smart moves from management, including doubling down on its e-commerce business and focusing on locking in customers via subscription services. Investors may be worried about valuation given the stock’s incredible run, but a squeaky clean balance sheet makes Chewy look like a worthwhile investment for the long haul. Consensus: $0.34 EPS, $30.8 billion in revenue.

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