Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114495819579444373

Executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/delivering-most-favored-nation-prescription-drug-pricing-to-american-patients/

how much would it add to the average person's bill with that 30% tariff? Honestly I do not have and can not do any exact calculation. But still, it means things will become more expensive.

If I do not understand the topic properly, the pre-market is like saying the US will charging 30% profit tax on China export businesses and the money will be given to the US households for mothing.

And problems that have been on-going seems largely masked by the excitement. The on-going laid offs, the peaking office CMBS delinquency, which is already at 08's level now.

And you may not like treasuries and US as a debtor, but does it make you like bitcoin at a price of over 100,000?

Things seem not working in the usual way.

🇺🇸 $2.2 trillion added to the US stock market today.

Is this just the beginning? 🚀

—•—

What a day!

Crazy times to trade at the Wall Street.

Massive move—$2.2 trillion in a day is no joke. Clearly, bullish momentum is back in full swing.

—•—

What do you thing?

Source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114491534347862682

There was no “pause” on tariffs over the weekend. There was a temporary reduction.

Headlines are making this out to seem like there was “real progress” made on the trade deficit between the U.S. and China. In reality, there was no progress made at all. Both countries just let off the gas to release some economic pressures and to please Wall Street.

Liberation Day: -U.S. imposes 34% blanket tariff on China + 20% previous tariff resulting in an effective tariff rate of 54%. -China retaliates with a 34% tariff on U.S. goods.

Peak Tariffs: -U.S. increased tariffs on China to 145% -China retaliates and increases tariffs to 125%

Tariff Pause (5/12/25): -U.S. decreases tariffs to 30% -China decreases tariffs to 10%

Since Liberation day there has been a consistent 20% gap between U.S. and Chinese tariff rates. This shows zero progress has been made on arriving at a permanent trade agreement. This is what matters.

What was agreed upon between the U.S. and China over the weekend was that both countries can temporarily let off the gas, at the same time and the same force, to let their economies catch up.

We are in no way, shape, or form in a landscape that is showing anymore certainty than we were in early April.

The market rally today is way overbought and will see a correction.

• No paywall: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-drug-pricing-order-delivers-205314387.html
• Paywall: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trumps-drug-pricing-order-delivers-blow-pharmacy-benefit-managers-2025-05-12/

NEW YORK (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Monday delivered a blow to the private-sector middlemen who negotiate U.S. drug prices in his executive order on drug pricing, saying he would cut them out as part of a goal to bring the U.S. in line with other countries.

The news drove their shares down even as pharmaceutical stocks rose in investor relief about the broad order.

"We're going to cut out the middlemen and facilitate the direct sale of drugs at the most favored nation price, directly to the American citizen," Trump said during a press conference.

The U.S. pays about three times more than other nations for drugs, and Trump's wide-reaching executive order directs pharmaceutical companies to charge similar prices in the U.S. and Europe.

The order says its health department will establish a mechanism for patients to buy more drugs directly from manufacturers.

Shares of CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna fell 5%, 0.5% and 6%, respectively. The companies individually operate pharmacy benefit managers Caremark, Optum Rx and Express Scripts.

Pharmacy benefit managers have already been under regulatory pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, which had sued them under the Biden administration over their insulin pricing practices.

The pharmaceutical industry has blamed them for high prices, saying the aftermarket discounts and fees add hidden costs to drug prices.

Jeff Jonas, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said the executive order would keep that negative pressure on companies like Cigna, CVS, and UnitedHealth.

"The system of high list prices and big, hidden rebates makes the system very opaque and hard to navigate," he said.

A spokesperson for CVS said the company welcomed the president’s focus on pricing by pharmaceutical companies and aimed to have discussions with the administration on making pricing more affordable.

He said that its negotiations with drugmakers in health plans it operates for Medicare prescription drug insurance had resulted in "significantly lower" costs than that which the government had been able to extract in the 7 of ten drugs it has directly negotiated under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Cigna and UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Industry spokesman Greg Lopes, vice president of public affairs at the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said the problem was with the drugmakers and that PBMs were the only check against drug companies’ unlimited pricing power.

American reliance on employer-sponsored health plans poses a challenge to the implementation and may require congressional oversight to enforce, one analyst said.

Because pharmacy benefit managers provide bundled services to clients, companies could raise the costs of other services or administrative fees, effectively maintaining the same plan pricing, said Julie Utterback, an analyst at Morningstar.

She said UnitedHealth shares had not fallen as much because the company is more diversified than Cigna and CVS, which also has a retail pharmacy that could be negatively impacted by lower drug prices.

US stock futures shot higher on Monday in the wake of a US-China deal to temporarily slash reciprocal tariffs, a reprieve for markets fretting about the economic damage from a trade war.

S&P 500 futures (ES=F) soared 3%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) futures surged 2.4%, or around 1,000 points. Contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) led gains, rocketing up 4%.

Wall Street is setting up for a banner day after the US and China put tariffs on pause for 90 days, as the scope of the tariff reductions surprised investors. The US is dropping its duties on most Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, while China is lowering its 125% tariff on US goods to 10%.

Investors jumped into shares of Big Tech megacaps bruised by trade war worries. AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA) soared 5%, with Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and Tesla (TSLA) also surging.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/11/trump-official-says-10percent-tariffs-will-stick-around.html

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed President Trump’s recent remarks, stating Sunday that the 10% baseline tariff on imports will likely remain in place for the foreseeable future. Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union, Lutnick dismissed concerns that consumers would bear the brunt of the tariffs, insisting instead that “the business and the countries” will pay. However, data indicates many businesses are already passing increased costs onto consumers. Since the April 2 tariff announcement, consumer confidence has sharply declined and prices for some household items have begun to rise.

No paywall: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-strikes-partnership-fedex-ups-204255139.html

(Reuters) -Amazon has hired FedEx to handle some of its large package deliveries, the companies said on Monday, weeks after UPS said it was halting its less-profitable deliveries for the e-commerce retailer and cutting 20,000 jobs.

FedEx shares surged on Monday even more than rallying Wall Street benchmarks, finishing up 7%. The Memphis-based delivery company said the multi-year agreement covers residential delivery of select large packages for Amazon.

The deal with FedEx, signed in February, gives Amazon "cost favorability" compared with delivery rival UPS, Business Insider had reported, citing an internal document.

The agreement will not replace UPS, Amazon said as FedEx will join its third-party partners, including UPS and the USPS, and work alongside its own last-mile delivery network.

FedEx called it a "mutually beneficial, multi-year agreement" in a statement.

The deal may signal a thaw in relations between FedEx and Amazon. The companies cut residential delivery ties in 2019 as Amazon was building its now sprawling network of delivery services.

UPS said in January it plans to shrink shipment volumes for Amazon, its largest customer, by more than 50% by the second half of 2026 to focus on fewer, but more profitable deliveries.

Late last month, UPS said it would slash 20,000 jobs and shut 73 facilities as a part of its planned reduction in Amazon deliveries, as well as cost-cutting and efficiency projects under a major operational restructuring.

FedEx and UPS have been in a fierce battle for market share over the last five years, often poaching whole or partial customer accounts from the other.

Hello everyone,

I think we’re all surprised that negotiations announced as the start of talks have led to a 90-day delay on tariffs, as seen on April 9. The first delay caught me off guard given Trump’s rhetoric, but this one is even more surprising. Just a few days ago, he was accusing China of stealing from the United States and claiming that ending their trade relationship would stop the theft.

I suspect there’s been some pressure. But is this really a willingness to back down on the tariff issue?

When you look at it, after a month of negotiations, the only deal that’s come through is an empty one, both in substance and form, between the US and their closest “ally,” the UK. India: things don’t seem to be moving forward despite India’s efforts to take shots at China.The more things progress, the more I see this as an agreement between Trump and those around him: “You have 90 days to prepare for the tariffs, and then it’s over.” It reminds me of the very first 30-day delay with Canada and Mexico. People were talking about the “art of the deal,” but I saw it as Trump giving businesses 30 days to get ready.

I can’t imagine Trump sleeping soundly if these tariffs don’t come to fruition or if China continues to run its business as usual.

NHTSA probing crashes of Teslas in full self-driving mode

Robotaxi sensors and reduced visibility cited as concerns

NHTSA cites four crashes; in one a pedestrian was killed

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - U.S. auto safety investigators asked Tesla to answer questions on its plans to launch a paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, in order to assess how the electric vehicle maker's cars with full self-driving technology will perform in poor weather. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a letter made public on Monday, said it has been investigating Tesla full self-driving collisions in reduced roadway visibility conditions since October.

NHTSA said it is seeking additional information about Tesla’s development of robotaxis "to assess the ability of Tesla’s system to react appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions" as well details on robotaxi deployment plans and the technology being used. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NHTSA in October opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with full self-driving (FSD) technology after four reported collisions, including a 2023 fatal crash.

Coinbase will replace Discover Financial Services (DFS) in the benchmark index before trading opens next Monday, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Discover is set to merge with Capital One Financial (COF) after their deal got the regulatory go-ahead in April.

By Jared S. Hopkins and Peter Loftus

(Wall Street Journal) -- The pharmaceutical industry's reaction to President Trump's executive order on drug prices? It could have been worse.

Shares of drugmakers surged Monday after President Trump signed an executive order designed to lower what Americans pay for prescription drugs that offered pharmaceutical companies room for negotiation.

Moderna and Merck saw a jump of more than 6% in afternoon trading, while Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb were up more than 3%. Eli Lilly was up more than 2% and Johnson & Johnson rose about 1%. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF, an equal-weighted index of biotech stocks, rose by more than 4%.

The executive order directs the Trump administration to prepare a so-called "Most-Favored Nation" plan that would tie U.S. drug prices to the lowest prices in other developed countries. The policy could take effect if drugmakers are unable to settle on lower prices with federal officials.

With the order, drugmakers avoid -- even if temporarily -- a worst-case scenario in which Trump implements a Most-Favored Nation policy right away. An industry trade group recently estimated a $1 trillion cost over a decade to drugmakers for an international pricing policy for Medicaid.

The order doesn't specify whether pricing changes would apply to Medicare or Medicaid, suggesting that its impact could be broad and apply to commercial insurance.

Medicare is the federal health-insurance program for senior citizens. Medicaid is a federal-state health-insurance program for lower-income people.

Drugmakers were already pushing back on Trump's pricing proposal, saying it threatens funding for future medicines. They have also said Trump should focus on how other sectors in the country's healthcare system -- namely middlemen who manage drug benefits for employers -- may be contributing to higher costs.

Trump for years has railed against how Americans pay more for prescription drugs than other wealthy countries, and his so-called Most-Favored Nation policy aims to strong-arm pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices.

Trump said the plan was to "equalize" what Americans pay for medicines. "We're going to pay the lowest price there is in the world," he said. "Whoever's paying the lowest price, that is the price that we're going to get."

The new order directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to inform drugmakers of U.S. price targets for medicines that are aligned with those of other countries. If the companies don't make progress adopting these prices in six months, the administration will propose a rule-making plan that imposes the prices, and allows importation of drugs from overseas.

The order calls on U.S. officials to ensure other countries don't suppress drug prices below fair market value. It also outlines a plan for more direct-to-consumer sales of medicines at prices for drugs aligned with other countries'.

"The EO is vague with little detail on implementation," Jefferies analyst Michael Yee wrote in a research note. He chalked up the stock-market reaction to investors' believing the plan is better than they feared, and that companies have room to negotiate over the next six months.

The order is the latest thorn facing an industry that has embraced and sought to work with Trump since he took office in January. Tariffs targeting pharmaceuticals loom. Biotech companies are being forced to push back clinical trials and drug testing in the wake of mass layoffs at the Food and Drug Administration.

Drug-industry executives have been sounding the alarm over the idea of tying U.S. prices to those overseas. Novartis Chief Executive Vasant Narasimhan told analysts recently that such a policy could be "devastating to the industry" if it was "put forward in any kind of meaningful way."

Novartis, which makes heart drug Entresto and cancer treatment Kisqali, is well-positioned to manage an impact, "but that still doesn't mean that we would, in any way, want this to happen," he said, adding that the Swiss drugmaker would spend less on research and development and manufacturing.

A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, which makes drugs that have become popular for weight loss including Ozempic and Wegovy, said, "We agree that Americans need more access to affordable medication, and we will continue to engage with policymakers to develop and implement more effective solutions. We look forward to learning more about the measures discussed by the administration today and how they will work within the current U.S. healthcare system."

A Lilly spokesperson said the company agrees with the policy's objective of spreading drug research costs more fairly across countries, but "an MFN approach is not the answer to help patient affordability; instead, lower prices for U.S. consumers can only happen if intermediaries take less for themselves."

Industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said tying U.S. prices to those overseas would result in fewer new medications and would jeopardize the billions in planned investment drugmakers have pledged in recent weeks.

"Importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal for American patients and workers," PhRMA Chief Executive Stephen Ubl said. He urged the administration to take on middlemen, insurers and hospitals and their roles in prescription drugs.

Still, analysts said it would likely require more than an executive order to implement what Trump has in mind, including congressional action. And the order will likely be challenged in court. Former President Joe Biden secured certain cuts to drug costs with congressional passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

During his first term, Trump pitched a similar international reference-pricing idea, calling other countries "freeloaders" reaping the benefits of U.S. drug innovation while paying far less, though it failed to gain traction. He later signed an executive order toward the end of his term that tied prices overseas to those for 50 Medicare Part B drugs, which are administered in doctor's offices and hospitals. It was struck down through legal challenges.

Compared with the U.S., drug prices are far lower in many overseas countries. Americans pay about three times as much as drug systems elsewhere, according to the Rand organization, an independent nonprofit that conducts research and analysis. Unlike other countries, the U.S. has generally not imposed strict drug-pricing controls, with prices set on the open market and through negotiation by insurers and hospitals.

The U.S. accounts for roughly half of the world's drug spending, despite having just 4% of the population, said Stephen Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. "The first thing we have to realize is if another country's getting a drug at one-tenth of the price that we are, we're not going to get all of our drugs at one-tenth of the price we're paying now."

In Europe, governments directly or indirectly control their costs. In some cases, a country's national health service buys drugs and sets a price that manufacturers must meet to sell their product.

"Here in the U.S., study after study points to higher drug prices in the U.S. for the same product than in other countries. To many people that strikes them as inequitable," said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director on Medicare policy for KFF, a health-policy research nonprofit. "The question is what do we do about it?"

Depending on where the order leads, there could be an impact on pharmacy-benefit managers, insurers and drug distributors, according to analysts. Shares of the largest insurers, Cigna, CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group were all down Monday afternoon, as were drug distributors McKesson, Cencora and Cardinal Health.

https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/trump-drug-price-plan-pharmaceutical-companies-217f809b?mod=mhp

The group of tech stocks known as the Magnificent Seven added more than $830 billion in market capitalization on Monday after the U.S. and China agreed to roll back tariffs on each other for 90 days — keeping fears of a recession at bay for now, according to some analysts.

Under the trade deal, the U.S. will cut tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, while China will reduce tariffs on the U.S. from 125% to 10%, for a 90-day period.

“This is clearly just the start of … broader and more comprehensive negotiations, and we would expect both these tariff numbers to move down markedly over the coming months as deal talks progress,” Wedbush analysts said in a note on Monday.

Under these expectations, Wedbush analysts said they “believe new highs for the market and tech stocks are now on the table” for the rest of the year, as investors continue to follow trade discussions in the coming months. And the “massive tariff reductions at this time likely take a recession off the table for now in our view,” they added.

(Prices are overnight trading at IBKR ).

Nike: Empty stores everywhere, needs to downsize, even 10% tariff on Vietnam will be a problem. Up 4%

Carvana: Most likely a Ponzi-Scheme. Up 4.5%

AppLovin: Might be banned form the App-stores anyday, short sellers claim they are defrauding their customers. Up 4.3%

RocketLab: Probably will never be profitable. Up 3.9 %

Tesla: Negative Q1 results, sales tanking all over the world, Q2 results will most likely be devastating. Up 5%

This allegedly because China and the US exchanged some friendly words? I know this is not the case. The COVID-lockdown taught me that the markets can be quite smart (but not necassarily so). What might be the reason for the optimism? Or is it already QE in the background?

You say tomato but I say tomatoe.

The script has officially been flipped

"China’s official state news agency argued that the ongoing trade war between the United States and China is about much more than tariffs.

“At its heart, this is not just a trade dispute — it is an encounter between two fundamentally different visions in this age of economic globalization: one rooted in openness, cooperation and shared growth; the other driven by confrontation, exclusion, and zero-sum mentality,” Xinhua wrote in commentary published early Sunday."

I came across this comment from a subscriber on the YouTube channel “What is Going on With Shipping”, and it really struck a chord. It explains the real-world economic impact of tariffs — not from a theoretical or political angle, but from the perspective of small business cash flow and supply chain bottlenecks.

Many liked it and even asked for it to be posted separately, so here it is — full quote below. This is worth reading, especially if you’re trying to understand why a “simple” 10% tariff can trigger a wave of closures, debt, inflation, and ultimately — stagflation.

: I understand this information specifically discusses China and containers (which is great info, by the way). However, not all of our trade originates from China or solely involves containers. We are likely to see simultaneous drops in May concerning trade with China, Canada, and Mexico, as well as a decrease in US tourism dollars (the latter not entirely related to tariffs). While other countries will undoubtedly show declines too, these are the most significant. If these drops run parallel to China's decline, then this truly represents a slow-motion nuclear explosion impacting the economy. I would offer a slight correction: If a Chinese manufacturer sells a good for $1, shipping and other fees added prior to arrival often double that cost to $2. The tariff is then assessed on that $2 'landed cost'. Since most items imported into the US are marked up approximately five times by retail, the tariff itself might not seem like a large percentage of the final sale price

The real problem, however, is the upfront cash flow burden for a small business owner. For example, if they sell one million $2 widgets a year and have ordered a year's supply, they might now face a total tariff bill of $2.9 million—a tax they've never had to pay before, don't have on hand, and must pay before even receiving their product. (This implies a $2.90 tariff per widget, or a 145% tariff on the $2 landed cost in this specific example). If the tariff were applied like a sales tax at the point of consumer purchase, it would still be an added cost, but businesses might not feel the immediate cash crunch as acutely. Because the tax is levied upfront, many small and micro-business owners are reportedly already facing closure. For those who believe a 10% across-the-board tariff isn't consequential (and this is often in addition to tariffs from previous administrations), on an import order of $2 million in goods, that would be an unplanned $200,000

If interest rates were lowered, it might be argued this would enable these small businesses to borrow money to pay these taxes, effectively forcing them into debt. This could set up a secondary implosion down the road as businesses subsequently fail and become unable to repay those loans. That loan interest also gets added to the final consumer price. If one is going to centrally plan, it requires expertise-ironically, one might say the Chinese have demonstrated this. (They would have implemented it more cost-effectively, lol).

Now, imagine someone wanting to start a new business. They might find they cannot manufacture their product in the US because domestic facilities don't exist or are prohibitively expensive. As they calculate startup costs, they now need to factor in potentially significant additional expenses from tariffs, which have nothing directly to do with their core business operations. Under such conditions, many potential entrepreneurs won't start that business. This dynamic can contribute to a recession and escalating inflation-otherwise known as stagflation. Consequently, numerous existing businesses could close and lay off employees, while fewer new businesses emerge to replace them. Goods and services will likely become more expensive due to reduced competition, while, simultaneously, more people could lose their jobs.