On the agenda this morning:<\/p>\n
\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 What we’ve learned in the year since ‘Liberation Day’<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcb0 OpenAI buys its way into tech media<\/p>\n
\u26a1\ufe0f Tesla posts disappointing delivery numbers as bulls look to AI pivot<\/p>\n
\ud83d\ude29 Another AI oops this week<\/p>\n
\u2615\ufe0f Coffee with a forced smile<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcc6 What we’re watching Friday: The March jobs report is set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET, following Thursday’s slightly lower-than-expected jobless claims<\/a>.<\/p>\n The picture is likely to show a fragile pre-war labor market. Economists expect to see 65,000 jobs added, which would be a breakeven number to keep the delicate balance. Check out our jobs report preview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfe1 Mortgage rates rise for the fifth straight week. They’re sitting just a hair below 6.5%.<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0e Hedge funds are dumping global stocks. As hope of a swift conclusion with Iran fades, these big investors are getting nervous<\/a>.<\/p>\n \ud83d\ude80 SpaceX is courting a Saudi fund for a $5 billion IPO investment. The anchor stake would prevent dilution of the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, keeping its exposure at 1%.<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83d\udcb0 Trump imposes pharmaceutical tariffs, adjusts steel and aluminum duties. Many exemptions put drug tariffs at 0% for a slew of companies<\/a>.<\/p>\n \ud83e\udd16 Microsoft is building its own high-powered AI models. The AI and “Magnificent” laggard is looking to slash dependence on OpenAI.<\/a><\/p>\n \u20bf Coinbase locks in conditional approval to become a bank. Would you bank with a cryptobank? Let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2708\ufe0f Jet fuel prices are up 100%, oil prices keep surging, and airlines are paying the price. Even Delta, which has appeared well-positioned to ride things out.<\/a><\/p>\n \u26fd\ufe0f President Trump is overlooking how global energy markets work. Though he claims the country is “totally independent of the Middle East,” prices suggest otherwise<\/a>.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcb0 How much money will we need in retirement? Americans’ answer keeps growing.<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83d\uded2 Walmart shoppers aren’t breaking under the weight of $4 gas \u2014 yet. Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe met with Walmart execs and noted only sentiment changes, not behavioral ones.<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83e\udd89 Blue Owl shares fall as private debt manager caps major withdrawal requests. Investors have requested withdrawals of 41% and 22% of its two flagship funds, but the firm is capping the requests at 5%.<\/a><\/p>\n \u26fd\ufe0f Bank of America says card spending on furniture and department stores has fallen. Meanwhile, gas station sales have surged<\/a>.<\/p>\n See what else is trending on Yahoo Finance<\/a>.<\/p>\n A year ago, President Trump enacted sweeping tariffs that hit more than 100 trading partners, allies and economic adversaries alike, in a monumental shift away from the global economic order.<\/p>\n Responding to what the White House deemed an economic emergency, the tariffs were sold as a way to spark a manufacturing renaissance and rejigger a rigged trade regime. America first, in a nutshell.<\/p>\n It’s easy to pinpoint that period on a zoomed-out, five-year stock chart because on a screen, it looks like a disaster. Some policy analysts might describe it that way too. Judging the trade upheaval by the numbers and the administration’s stated goals \u2014 of jobs growth, trade surpluses, and merely transitory inflation \u2014 shows the protectionist swerve fell short of its aims.<\/p>\n The record is messy and mixed<\/a>. But so much has changed in a year, from the rollbacks and trade deals to a thundering Supreme Court decision and the reverberations of the war in Iran.<\/p>\n Here’s a look back at one of the most important days for investors and what we can take away from “Liberation Day.”<\/p>\n Where we are now<\/p>\n The average effective tariff rate stands at 11.0%, according to the Yale Budget Lab<\/a>, marking the highest level since 1943, not including last year’s peak.<\/p>\n President Trump reissued a 10% global tariff in February after the Supreme Court struck down the use of his emergency powers to enact sweeping “reciprocal tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, new data from the Commerce Department showed<\/a> that the US trade deficit jumped almost 5% in February to $57.3 billion from January’s $54.5 billion. And even as trade figures were volatile last year as importers scrambled to react to shifting policies, the US trade deficit remains similar to what it was<\/a> on April 2, 2025.<\/p>\n There and back again: A market journey<\/p>\n Following erratic trade policy last year may have felt disorienting<\/a>. The Dow plunged almost 1,700 points, and the S&P 500 shed almost 5% in a single day, echoing the chaos of the early phase of the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n But once Trump backed down from executing the most devastating levies, markets began their march upward. In a sudden reversal, Trump walked back dozens of country-specific tariffs, sending Wall Street into a dizzying rally.<\/p>\n Where Congress and public opinion failed to keep the president from pursuing a trade overhaul, markets acted as a powerful restraint. Trillions of dollars in stock losses and a surge in Treasury yields appeared to persuade Trump to change course.<\/p>\n In the weeks that followed, markets continued to rally on news of coming trade deals with other nations, agreements to negotiate further, and inklings of a detente with Beijing.<\/p>\n AI bullishness and muscular corporate earnings overrode lingering trade drama. And the doldrums of last April gave way to S&P 7,000.<\/p>\n A few lessons we’ve learned<\/p>\n Liberation Day showed the strength of the TACO trade (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) as a tool for understanding US policy and informing investment strategies. But the market response to the Iran war highlights the limits of that framework too. Unlike a trade war, the president has less of a say about when an actual war will end.<\/p>\n The Fed is still watching tariff inflation wind its way through the economy. During the Fed\u2019s policy meeting last month, Chair Jerome Powell said he sees some progress on inflation: \u201cIt should come as we start to see in the middle of the year, progress on tariffs \u2014 going through once and then tariff inflation coming down.\u201d<\/p>\n Combined with the energy disruption in Iran, that progress may be undermined, and instead of a rate cut, there’s growing chatter about the possibility of a rate hike if pricing pressures worsen.<\/p>\n Globalization isn’t dead, and job losses in American manufacturing have continued to be significant. Trade flows and supply chain sourcing shifted, and alienating traditional trading partners has spurred other nations to strengthen ties to China.<\/p>\n 3 lingering questions we have<\/p>\n How can the Fed separate inflation winding down from tariffs from the new oil shock \u2014 and is that even possible or useful?<\/p>\n Is the tariff washout \u2014 a chaotic phase that the market now registers as a blip \u2014 a useful model to understand the consequences of the Iran war?<\/p>\n What will a new high-tariff era accomplish?<\/p>\n OpenAI is buying TBPN, the buzzy tech news show that livestreams on X and YouTube, in another instance of everything becoming TV. Tech world luminaries are looking for ways to bypass traditional media outlets to reach new audiences and get their points across. Why not just buy a successful video podcast?<\/p>\n The terms of the deal were not disclosed. But OpenAI is pulling a media outlet into its orbit that\u2019s popular within the tech and investing community. Even without interfering with TBPN\u2019s content, OpenAI can guarantee the success of an innovative broadcast that\u2019s largely sympathetic to entrepreneurs and tech firms.<\/p>\n TBPN\u2019s co-founder and co-host of the company\u2019s daily livestream, John Coogan, said in a post on X that the show won\u2019t change as a result of the acquisition. And in an email, TBPN said it\u2019s retaining full editorial control and enacted a contractual agreement to \u201cpreserve its independence and limit OpenAI\u2019s influence.\u201d<\/p>\n From OpenAI, TBPN gets a resource-rich patron and proximity to the company at the heart of the AI transition \u2014 with all the tech talent, industry connections, and business growth that comes with it.<\/p>\n Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n Tesla is explicit about wanting to be seen as more than a car company. But it still has to sell cars, and its first quarter deliveries posted on Thursday missed estimates, underscoring a challenging EV landscape.<\/p>\n EVs are getting renewed attention as the war in Iran forces gas prices higher. But it will likely take months before more painful stops at the pump actually translate into lifting EV demand. An electric car without a subsidy \u2014 in this economy?<\/p>\n Whatever the social standing of EVs, Tesla and its backers don\u2019t see fading support for its vehicles as a reason to stay down. On the contrary, it\u2019s more reason to lean into its AI transition.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the delivery numbers were quite underwhelming, this was not a shock to us given the current EV backdrop across geographies while the company shifts gears to focus more on its AI strategy,\u201d said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cAll eyes remain on the company\u2019s AI rollout including the company\u2019s switch in long-term mission of developing a sustainable revenue stream from AI and robotics with ~$20 billion in capex tied to new factories for cybercab, Optimus, battery, and AI compute expansion to reshape the company.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n “Wow. Incredible amount of [state of the art] training data now just available to China thanks to @mercor_ai <\/a>leak. Every major lab. Billions and billions of value and a major national security issue.”<\/p>\n \u2014 Y Combinator president and CEO Garry Tan<\/p>\n Hiring startup Mercor, whose customers include OpenAI and Anthropic, became the latest AI company to have a data snafu as a hacking group apparently gained access and published some of the company’s customer data.<\/p>\n Coming on the heels of Anthropic’s source code breach (that time related to human error), the breach shows that the AI world has the makings of a major problem, though perhaps too niche to be one of mere PR.<\/p>\n Still, the tech bigwig community sees this as a potential beginning of a new paradigm.<\/p>\n Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n Last year, Starbucks mandated that its employees write something handwritten and personalized on customers’ cups to foster more of a personal connection.<\/p>\n Whether that was the problem for Howard Schultz’s famous “third place” vision is debatable. And certainly those messages and counter small talk feel different if news of that corporate dictum managed to drift to your ears.<\/p>\n Now, CEO Brian Niccol and co. are doubling down, offering $1,200 annual bonuses to the highest-performing caf\u00e9s to further incentivize the friendly faces.<\/p>\n Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n Economic data: Change in nonfarm payrolls, March (65,000 expected, -92,000 previously); Change in private payrolls, March (+55,000 expected, -86,000 previously); Change in manufacturing payrolls, March (-12,000 previously); Average hourly earnings, month-on-month, March (+0.3% expected, +0.4% previously); Average hourly earnings, year-on-year, March (+3.8% expected, +3.8% previously); Unemployment rate, March (+4.4% expected, +4.4% previously); Labor force participation rate, March (62.1% expected, 62% previously); S&P Global US services PMI, March final reading (51.1 previously); S&P Global US composite PMI, March final reading (51.4 previously)<\/p>\n Earnings calendar: Trilogy Metals (TMQ<\/a>)<\/p>\n Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ethan Wolff-Mann<\/a> is a Senior Editor at Yahoo Finance, running newsletters. Follow him on X @ewolffmann<\/a>.<\/p>\n Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices<\/a><\/p>\n Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/p>\n President Trump signing the April 2, 2025 executive order on “Liberation Day.” (SAUL LOEB \/ AFP) \u00b7 SAUL LOEB via Getty Images <\/p>\n
The big list. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images) \u00b7 Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Containers at the Taiwanese Port of Keelung on April 4, 2025. (Annabelle Chih\/Getty Images). \u00b7 Annabelle Chih via Getty Images <\/p>\n
(OpenAI) \u00b7 OpenAI <\/p>\n
(Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images) \u00b7 Justin Sullivan via Getty Images <\/p>\n
(Getty) \u00b7 edfuentesg via Getty Images <\/p>\n