GSI Banner
  • Free Access
  • Contributors
  • Membership Levels
  • Video
  • Origins
  • Sponsors

  • Free Access
  • Contributors
  • Membership Levels
  • Video
  • Origins
  • Sponsors
  • Contact

© 2025 Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Whitelist Us
Swan Dive

Here Cometh Tariff Tantrum 2.0

Loading ...Addison Wiggin

July 8, 2025 • 7 minute, 2 second read


risktariffs

Here Cometh Tariff Tantrum 2.0

If the first half of 2025 was Trump’s stage-setting — Liberty posters, tax reform, tariff threats and economic suspense — the second half opens with a plot twist: new villains, same drama and no clear ending.

We return from our post–Independence Day reprieve to find our protagonist — President Trump — still writing his epic saga in real time. With his Big Beautiful Bill signed into law and a fresh pen in hand, the man who promised “America First” has now promised tariffs for everyone else.

Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Laos, Myanmar — pick a name, slap on a percentage. If they’re cozying up to BRICS, they’ll be seeing a Trump tax at customs.

Meanwhile, the markets — dazed but not confused — finally blinked. The S&P 500, fresh off its sun-drenched record highs, tumbled Monday, led lower by the mega-caps .

The dollar, in contrast, rallied on global uncertainty, gaining 0.5% against a basket of currencies. Call it a recalibration… or maybe just indigestion from too much fireworks and too little fiscal restraint.

📉 Risk Without Reward: Profits Go Out of Style

It’s beginning to look a lot like 1999, with a splash of 2021. A curious thing has happened this year: the worse your business fundamentals, the better your stock has done.

According to Bespoke, 858 companies in the Russell 3000 with no profits have posted gains averaging 36% in 2025 — outpacing their better-run counterparts. Of the 14 biggest gainers since April, 10 are in the red.

The stars of this speculative revival? Avis, up 125% year to date. Carvana, riding a 74% wave. Aeva — the lidar sensor company that most people still can’t explain — has soared 560%. Goldman’s retail-favorite index, the one we haven’t heard from since the meme-stock heyday of 2021, has finally hit a new all-time high.

“We’re not seeing a full-fledged ‘flight-to-crap’ yet,” says Interactive Brokers strategist Steve Sosnick, “but it’s clear the motivation behind these stocks’ activity is something other than disciplined cash-flow analysis.” Translation: investors are acting on vibes, not valuations.

💥 Trump’s Tariff Encore: The Sequel Nobody Wanted

The 90-day tariff pause, that brief intermission after the April 2 fireworks, was supposed to calm markets and give America’s trading partners time to negotiate. Instead, they stalled.

And now, so has Trump’s patience. On Truth Social, he dropped the hammer again: 25% tariffs on Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan. South Africa gets a 30% hit. Laos and Myanmar? A full 40%.

And that’s before we get to the bonus round.

Any country supporting the “anti-American” policies of the BRICS summit — currently underway in Rio — will get an extra 10% tariff slapped on top. Trump didn’t mention them by name, but the statement from the BRICS group over the weekend was a thinly veiled rebuke of U.S. protectionism.

Trump’s reply? A tariff cannon and a smirk.


White House To Reset Social Security?

Turn On Your Images.

According to this shocking report, a tiny tech firm sanctioned and hand-picked by President Trump and DOGE could be handed the biggest government tech contract in history.

A contract to completely reboot Social Security’s ancient, outdated code.

It’s not public yet.

But once the July 23 announcement hits… It could ignite one of the fastest stock runs ever.

Here’s how to play it before it’s all over the news.


🌀 Markets Can Handle Almost Anything—Except Uncertainty

Last week, investors seemed to shrug. Record highs, good government jobs data, upbeat GDP estimates — all suggested that maybe the tariff storm wouldn’t be so bad.

But Ameriprise strategist Anthony Saglimbene warned this morning: “The impacts from tariffs have been limited thus far, but are widely expected to be more visible in the second half.”

Translation: If you’re basing your positioning on Q1 optimism, you might want to hedge. Especially with more trade cliffs ahead — July 21 (Canada), August 1 (general tariffs), August 12 (China). The plot thickens, and volatility’s understudy is already waiting in the wings.

🛢️ Oil Defies Logic, For Now

OPEC+ shocked traders with a 548,000 barrel-per-day production hike starting in August. You’d think that’d send oil prices tumbling — but instead, they ticked up.

Analysts still expect crude to fall below $60 by year-end, but in the short run, geopolitical tensions and supply chain adjustments are propping up prices. If you’ve been looking for the next “irrational exuberance” moment, oil might be it — trading like it’s strategic instead of supply-and-demand.

🎟️ Wimbledon as an Asset Class?

And now for something completely different: want a five-year Centre Court seat at Wimbledon? A debenture will run you about $160,000.

But if you’re more into pickleball and passive income, you can sell that golden ticket on the secondary market for $275,000. That’s a 73% gain — just for holding the right to watch Federer’s ghost (and maybe Alcaraz) in peace.

Bill Ackman, it seems, will never make it to Court No. 1. But even he would admit: when memes are stocks, and seats are assets, every market’s a bubble in waiting.

🧙 Tolkienization of the Market: In Middle Earth We Trust

As discussed in our recent Grey Swan Live!  with Ian King, the hottest trend in Silicon Valley may be Tolkien-themed finance. Palantir, Anduril, Erebor… These are no longer just references for fantasy nerds — they’re companies backed by Peter Thiel.

The co-founder of PayPal and Tolkien superfan has minted firms named after Elven bread, immortal metals and magical surveillance stones. Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Rivendell One LLC.

Now Erebor, a digital bank for startups, enters the scene. The border between Middle Earth and Wall Street? Thinning by the day.

₿ Bitcoin’s Earnings Season: Enter the Saylorverse

Mark Jeftovic of the Grey Swan Network calls it the Bitcoin Effect. Michael Saylor’s Strategy (née MicroStrategy) posted a $14.05 billion unrealized gain in Q2 as b itcoin (BTC) surged.

Yes, billion. The stock is up 3,300% since Saylor’s initial plunge into BTC in 2020. While the company booked a $4.04 billion deferred tax expense and just $112.8 million in software revenue, it joins the exclusive club of companies with operating profits north of $10 billion.

Strategy is the largest corporate holder of b itcoin, and with an at-the-market preferred stock program underway, they’re not done buying.

🎾 Wimbledon Arbitrage: Thread Counts and Profit Margins

Debenture seats at Wimbledon cost $160,000 — but can now be resold for up to $275,000. T

hat’s a 73% markup, making it perhaps the most genteel form of scalping known to man.

While Bill Ackman may never see Court No. 1, some enterprising tennis fans are making a killing just by flipping seats.

📜 Paris Turns 2,000

Today, the City of Light celebrates 2,000 years of existence. From Gallic tribes on the Seine to Roman Lutetia, to Haussmann’s grand redesign and the Impressionist salons of the 19th century, Paris has remained a cultural and financial cornerstone. As one of the world’s most visited cities, it continues to straddle ancient legacy and modern spectacle — rather like our current markets.

📅 What’s Ahead This Week…

Tuesday brings the NFIB small business optimism index and consumer credit data — twin lenses into how Main Street and the American shopper are weathering the storm. Together, they provide a stark portrait of the economy’s pulse.

Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Day begins today … or rather, Prime Days. The event now runs four days long and last year raked in $14 billion in spending. Analysts expect another record-breaker as consumers trade restraint for deals.

The second half of 2025 opens with fireworks and fog. The markets are still chasing dreams, even as the ground shifts beneath them. Tariffs are more than a tax — they’re a weaponized expression of a new economic order.

Profitless stocks are a signal of excess liquidity, not optimism. And every new announcement from the White House or Truth Social carries ripple effects that touch everything from currencies to commodities to your portfolio.

As an investor, your job isn’t to outguess the next tweet or tariff — it’s to understand what the world’s actually rewarding now, and what it’s quietly punishing.

In that light, cash flows still matter. Real assets still matter. Confidence, liquidity, and political clarity… matter more than ever.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! with Matt Milner, Thursday, July 10 at 11 a.m. ET. We’ll dig beneath the glossy headlines of democratized private equity — SpaceX, xAI and the next wave of vehicles reshaping how individuals gain exposure to once‑off‑limits deals. Opportunities? Absolutely. But the risks are as novel as the structures. Bring your questions.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com


Matt Milner: Main Street’s New Gateway into Wall Street’s Playground

July 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

For close to one hundred years, the U.S. government made it illegal for ordinary investors to invest in pre-IPO startups — in other words, companies that weren’t public.

Unless you were a wealthy accredited investor (net worth of at least $1 million, or annual salary of $200,000), you could only invest in publicly-traded stocks and bonds.

This forced ordinary investors to miss out on big gains. According to Cambridge Associates, a financial advisor with clients including the Rockefeller Family and the Bill Gates Foundation, private startups have delivered annual returns of 55% over the last twenty-five years.

That’s five, six, seven times higher than the average returns of stocks. And it’s enough to double your money every two years or so.

Matt Milner: Main Street’s New Gateway into Wall Street’s Playground
The Labor Market’s Warning Signal Now

July 8, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

A Bloomberg survey shows 30% of everyday Americans expect the labor market to get worse. Each jump of this magnitude in the past has preceded a recession.

Labor market data is screaming that there’s trouble in the real economy.

Except, of course, the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics – the same government agency that has “revised” away over a million jobs reported as having been created during the Biden administration.

The Labor Market’s Warning Signal Now
Mamdani Land

July 7, 2025 • Joel Bowman

Universal healthcare and “free” (taxpayer-funded) education and the rest of the redistributive voter bribes are ways of spending money, not generating it. Progressive taxation is a means of redistributing wealth, not producing it. The difference is non-trivial.

Countries like Kuwait and Norway are not rich because of their respective governments’ addiction to expensive giveaway programs, whatever one thinks of the merits or alleged compassion of such redistributive policies. They are wealthy despite them.

Down at the other End of the World, meanwhile, president Javier Milei has been busy liberating Argentina’s long-suffering citizens from three-quarters of a century of politicians’ worst laid plans. We’ll have more about the goings on in our adopted home later in the week.

Mamdani Land
The US Dollar, Trading Like a Memecoin

July 7, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

While market volatility may be the big story this year, the bigger story may be that of the U.S. dollar itself.

Year-to-date, it’s down over 10%.

That’s a huge move for any currency.

But usually the 10% moves occur in third-world countries experiencing a crisis, not the so-called world reserve currency.

The US Dollar, Trading Like a Memecoin