President Trump just said “sike” once again to everyone anxiously anticipating the end of his 90-day tariff pause.

Today, the White House announced the July 9 tariff deadline is being kicked down the road to August 1—but that was no solace to investors, who got hit with a whole new set of tariff announcements and sent stocks lower.

Trump announced via Truth Social that he will impose 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea starting August 1, as well as a 30% levy on South Africa. He also announced a 25% tariff on Malaysia and Kazakhstan, and 40% on Laos and Myanmar.

That’s not all: Last night, Trump also threatened an extra 10% tariff on countries that supported the “anti-American” policies of BRICS nations, which are convening in Rio de Janeiro. The countries, which include Brazil, India, China, South Africa, and others, put out a statement condemning Trump’s trade policy on Sunday (without mentioning him by name).

Liberating investors from answers

While the stock market typically hates uncertainty, the S&P 500 managed to hit a fresh all-time high last week amid the tariff ambiguity. Despite geopolitical tensions rising, a trade war truce in the wind, and fears that inflation could reignite, traders focused on the good news: The economy appeared to be on firmer footing than feared and the White House seemed willing to engage in trade talks.

But just because the market has been keeping calm and carrying on in the first half of 2025, doesn’t mean it will do the same for the Liberation Day sequel. “Given that impacts from tariffs have been limited on the economy and corporate profits thus far (but are widely expected to be more visible in the second half), we believe investors' more sanguine assumptions about the investing landscape leave stocks susceptible to periods of elevated volatility,” wrote Ameriprise Chief Market Strategist Anthony Saglimbene today.

Looking ahead…other tariff dates to watch (other than Aug. 1) include July 21, which is when the US and Canada, our biggest trading partner, must reach a deal, or else higher tariffs could kick in. August 12 is when the pause between the US and China expires.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• WNS Holdings, an IT outsourcing firm, jumped 14.26% after French consulting company Capgemini agreed to buy it for $3.3 billion.
• Uber climbed 3.26% and hit a record high after Wells Fargo raised its price target from $100 to $120. Its market cap is now above $200 billion .
• Cybersecurity stocks are on the up, with the Amplify Cybersecurity ETF notching a new all-time high.
• Geo Group and CoreCivic, two private prison companies, gained 4.46% and 3.92%, respectively, due to Trump’s tax bill that will boost funding for immigration detention centers.

What’s down

• Tesla tumbled 6.79% after CEO Elon Musk announced the creation of a new political party, the America Party. “Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” tech analyst Dan Ives wrote.
• Toyota and Honda dropped nearly 4% a piece following Trump’s tariff threats against Japan.
• CoreWeave will acquire data center infrastructure provider Core Scientific in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $9 billion. Wall Street doesn’t seem hyped about the core^2 tie-up, sending CoreWeave down 3.33% and Core Scientific down 17.61%.
• BitMine Immersion Technologies got a 20.39% haircut after surging 3,000% in the five trading days ending July 3. It’s borrowing from the Strategy playbook and raised $250 million to buy and hold ethereum.

Profits…who needs ’em?

As riskier investing strategies come back in vogue, money-losing companies and meme stocks are popping like it’s 2017, the WSJ reports.

Through late June, 858 Russell 3000 stocks with no earnings to their name have posted average gains of 36% this year, a better performance than their profitable peers. And among the 14 stocks in the index that have more than tripled since the market bottom on April 8, 10 don’t generate profits, per Bespoke Investment Group. Meanwhile, meme stocks are back. A Goldman Sachs index of retail faves has returned to its first record high since the halcyon days of November 2021.

Some standouts:

• Avis (the car rental company): up ~125% YTD
• Carvana: up ~74%
• Aeva (which makes lidar sensors for autonomous cars): up nearly ~560%

Bottom line: “We’re not yet seeing a full-fledged ‘flight-to-crap,’ but it is clear that the motivation behind many of these stocks’ activity is something other than disciplined considerations of discounted cash flows,” Interactive Brokers Chief Strategist Steve Sosnick told the Journal.

Forget stock tokenization—the hottest trend in markets today is stock Tolkienization.

Palantir isn’t just a red-hot defense tech stock, it’s also the name of the “seeing stones” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, capable of witnessing events of the past, present, and future around Middle Earth. Anduril isn’t just the tech company selling AI to governments, it’s also the name of Aragorn’s sword that was re-forged from the shards of Narsil.

Now we’ve got Erebor, which isn’t just a digital bank serving startups and crypto companies that’s actively raising funds. It’s also the Elven name for the Lonely Mountain, home to the Dwarves of Durin.

So why are all these Tolkien references popping up in markets lately? Turns out, the Venn diagram of finance and Frodo overlaps with one person: Peter Thiel.

The one entrepreneur to rule them all

Thiel—the co-founder of PayPal, an early investor in Facebook, and a prolific venture capitalist—is a self-professed Tolkien superfan, and has a history of naming companies after people, places, and things created by the esteemed British author.

Thiel founded Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital, which are VC firms, and also the names of godlike beings and a super-strong metal, respectively, in Tolkien’s universe. He’s in charge of Lembas LLC and Rivendell One LLC, holding companies for his other investments and also the respective names of Elven bread and an Elven sanctuary. And his Founders Fund is an investor in Erebor, the forthcoming bank being launched by billionaires including the co-founder of…Anduril. Got it?

Clearly, helping start Palantir and investing in both Anduril and Erebor was no happy coincidence. Thiel’s love of all things Lord of the Rings has translated to a naming convention across the years that smacks of early Silicon Valley nerdiness and modern Silicon Valley’s conservatism.

While it seems unlikely that the staunchly anti-war Tolkien (who came to his stance after serving in the trenches in WWI) would endorse the idea of his creation providing the names to defense companies like Palantir and Anduril, considering how successful both have become, the parade of LOTR-inspired names is probably not ending any time soon. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until there’s a stablecoin called Smaug or a cybersecurity company called Rohan.—MR

• TikTok is reportedly building a replacement app for US users, which would pave the way for a sale by its China-based parent company ByteDance.
• White House trade advisor Peter Navarro bashed Apple CEO Tim Cook for moving slowly in shifting manufacturing out of China.
• Strategy posted an unrealized gain of $14 billion in Q2, thanks to bitcoin’s gain and an accounting change, Bloomberg reported.
• Robinhood’s new tokenized equities are being scrutinized by Lithuania’s central bank, its lead regulator in the EU, after OpenAI raised concerns.
• Two bitcoin wallets were activated on Friday after 14 years of radio silence, with their owners potentially netting over $2 billion in profits.

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We’ve got the NFIB small business optimism index and the consumer credit report on Tuesday—one provides insight into how small businesses are handling the economy, and the other explores how US shoppers are handling the economy. Both could prove highly informative for investors wondering how they should handle the economy.

Don’t forget that Amazon Prime Day begins tomorrow, though “day” doesn’t really seem appropriate anymore: Amazon has extended the sales event from two days to four this year. The move has analysts excited, considering that last year’s event drove ~$14 billion in spending.

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