New Tariff Threats Give Market Indexes a Haircut

Monday, July 7, 2025

Just when we thought it was safe to take our eye off the market… threats of new tariffs from President Trump rear their ugly heads again. We started the trading day with the understanding that the July 9th tariff pause deadline was being pushed back to August 1st to U.S. trading partners who have not yet established new trade deals (which is almost all of them). Thus, the trim off record highs we saw before the opening bell turned into a full haircut.

Markets were off session lows, with a little up-turn in the final minutes to salve the daily losses. The Dow closed -422 points, -0.94% on the day, while the S&P 500 was -49 points, -0.79%. The Nasdaq was more or less in-line, -188 points or -0.92%, while the small-cap Russell 2000, freshly entering the green once again year to date, dumped -1.58% for the session. Bond yields inched up throughout the day, from +4.36% on the 10-year and +3.88% on the 2-year to +4.39% and +3.90%, respectively.
 

New Trump Tariff Threats Shake Out Record Highs

Following all-time closing highs on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, President Trump has once again voiced a hard line on tariff policy, particularly against two countries in the Far East — South Korea and Japan. Without a new trade deal with the U.S. by the end of this month, an additional +25% will be slapped onto both countries. For countries such as South Africa and Malaysia, Trump has taken to Truth Social to threaten between +25-40% new tariffs. 

This included a Sunday evening social media post decrying “Anti-American policies of BRICS” countries — originally Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but in recent years adding countries like Egypt, UAE, Iran and Indonesia, with invitations to Saudi Arabia and Turkiye — which would see an additional +10% tariff put on imported goods to the U.S. But as we remarked this morning in this space https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/2565914/a-relaxing-week-ahead-in-the-stock-market, it is growing more difficult to ascertain the level of seriousness to such threats.
 

Amazon Prime Day Expands, Starts Tuesday

Originally Amazon’s AMZN answer to China’s “Singles Day” (November 11th, or 11/11), “Prime Day” has expanded from a single day of e-commerce discounts to now four full days, from Tuesday the 8th through Friday the 11th. This doubles the recent two-day event for Amazon, which last year reached a record-high $14.2 billion in sales, +11% year over year.

“Prime Day” includes more than 35 retail categories, such as home goods, electronics, beauty and fashion, and will this year offer a new wrinkle: “Today’s Big Deals” on short-term sale prices announced by top brands. BofA securities analyst Justin Post estimates more than $21 billion in Gross Merchandise Value, according to Barron’s.

Amazon shares are currently nearly $20 per share off their all-time high market levels reached in February of this year, yet well higher than the near-term trough in late April. Zacks consensus estimates for Amazon’s Q2 results are for +7.3% earnings growth and +9.5% growth on the revenue side. Amazon currently rides a 10-quarter string of earnings beats, with a trialing 4-quarter average of more than +20%. The company reports earnings roughly four weeks from now.

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