DC Lite #339

1. Tariffs paused. Trump announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs introduced at last week's "Liberation Day," but will keep the 10% baseline tariffs in place.

2. Tariffs paused (II). "This trade war was really always about the US vs China. The US made a strategic error by picking fights with everyone, instead of just focusing on China. The 90 day pause fixes that and is thus very good. It also gives Xi an off-ramp if he reverses China's retaliatory tariffs..."

3. Recession call. Goldman made a recession its baseline forecast this afternoon only to rescind the call shortly thereafter following Trump's announcement.

4. Stocks rally. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq jumped by the most since 2008 and 2001, respectively…

5. Gold. "Gold had a good day but look what it did at the announced tariff pause: Nothing. There is an important message in that juxtaposed on all the assets that spiked wildly."

ICYMI

• Tue 4/8 #338: "A market bottom signal based on extremes in breadth has activated"

• Mon 4/7 #337: "'No recession' bears are rare, with only three recorded in the past century (the last being in 2022)."

• Fri 4/4 #336: "A spike above 45 in the $VIX has generally been a pretty good panic-clearing signal"

• Thu 4/3 #335: Today’s 4.8% decline was the worst since June 2020