here we go again f**k

So, Donald Trump is threatening new

tariffs and today I'm going to give you

a short bottom line of what's going on

in my opinion of why they matter and

then I'll also talk to you about what

the Federal Reserve has to say. And

sorry I sound a little raspy today. I'm

practicing my RFK

voice. Hey everyone, me Kevin here. Did

you know you can get life insurance in

as little as 5 minutes? Go to

mechan.com/life paid partner on the

channel. Okay, tariffs. Trump this

morning threatened 50% tariffs on the EU

starting June 1st. It's about a week

away. All right. 25% tariffs on Apple

products if iPhone production isn't

moved to the US. These are just threats

right now. They're not actually levies,

but June 1st is like 8 days away. Kind

of crazy because that means the coupon

expiration for the alpha report is like

8 days away. That's crazy. Actually,

it's like 7 days away. But anyway,

here's what you need to know about this.

The value of EU

tariffs compared to China. Trade with

the European Union sits at almost $1

trillion per year. And we have much more

balanced trade with the European Union.

Trade with the European Union sits at

$975.9

billion. We import about $1 or sorry,

let me rephrase that. We import about

every for every $1 and uh for every

$1.6 of imports we take from the

European Union, we export to them $1. So

1.6 to1. In other words, we still import

more than we send to them. It's about

605 billion versus 370 billion if you

use 2024 numbers. Compare this to China.

China, we import about $4 for every

dollar that we export there. So, you

have a much more balanced situation with

Europe, but I'm not so worried about the

balance. The balance just sort of

suggests that there's going to be a

broader impact to damage if we really

ruffle trade with the European Union.

It's not no longer just like furniture

or toys and TVs like with China. Could

be substantially more

broad. What I think matters is that

trade with the European Union is

actually 67% larger than it is with

China. Chinese trade is about $582

billion 2024 numbers. Uh and that makes

the European Union 67% larger in dollar

volume trade. So in other words, a trade

war with Europe on a dollar volume scale

is 67 times or 67% worse than a trade

war with China. Now mind you, tariffs on

China are still sizable. They're still

30% for at least the next, you know, 60

to 90 days TBD how things actually play

out. And a lot of companies have really

pulled forward inventory in March. But

now that we've had a this this sort of

pause of tariffs in the second half of

April and going into uh May and we have

the threat of these European tariffs

starting within next week, I actually

think we're going to see sort of a 2.0

pull forward where we have even more of

a pull forward of demand. So actually

over the next few weeks, economic data

is probably likely to look good and it

could be supportive of this sort of buy

the dip mentality in stocks. The problem

is the more of this pulling forward

we're doing, the more we're taking good

data from the second half of the year,

we're bringing it forward to the first

half of the year. That's good today,

it's bad in the future probably,

especially since the European Union, at

least in Donald Trump's words, uh are

quote very difficult to deal with and

that our discussions with them are going

nowhere. All right, here's the thing.

The higher stocks go, the more

aggressive Donald Trump is going to be

on tariffs. The lower stocks go and the

more of a shock the financial system

has, the quicker Donald Trump U-turns.

Therefore, it is my opinion that buying

the dip early in the EU trade war

doesn't make much sense because as

stocks are near all-time highs, Donald

Trump will be more aggressive. Donald

Trump gets a weaker when we get closer

to the Trump put levels which are closer

well at least according to the last time

when the S&P 500 hit about

4,900 that's when Donald Trump started

panicking at the same time as we were

having a crisis in the bond market.

Okay, right now we're at about 5,800 on

the S&P 500. So what's a simple strategy

here? You don't need to flip-flop and

dump everything. This is very simple. We

talk about this all the time in the

course member live streams. If you want,

you take a portion of your portfolio,

let's say that that trading 10% uh or if

you have 10% margin, you take that edge

10 or 20% of your portfolio, you set

trailing stops. If they trigger, great.

Then set buy stops going back in. So if

the market falls, say 4% on the cues or

the S&P 500, you sell that 10 20%, you

pay off your debt. Then you set buy

stops. So basically, if the market

rebounds 4%, you go buy again. This is

just an example, right? It's not

personalized advice. Uh, and that's one

way that on the on the edge of your

portfolio, you can make sure you have

some cash to actually buy the real dip

with and you're not in margin. Okay,

cool. Bottom line out of the way. Now,

what does the Federal Reserve say? Well,

the Federal Reserve actually yesterday

via Waller said that h 10 to 18%, we

could probably still cut by the end of

the year. That was bullish. It's like,

really? You still want to cut rates even

though we have 10 to 18%

tariffs? That's impressive. Cool. That

helps soft landing narrative. Great. We

want soft landing. We don't want pain in

the

economy. This is look again and and I

always people always like, "Oh, Kevin

has a huge bias." I I I actually don't

think I do. It doesn't really matter to

us what happens is that the economy

keeps booming. We just keep building

accessory dwelling units over at

Houseack. In case you're not familiar

what that is, what that is is basically

you take a house and then in California

and parts of California you could turn

these houses into like three or four

unit apartments basically. So you have a

house plus three units which is just

like crazy because you can make a lot of

money on your investment just because

the values are so high in certain co

coastal regions. doesn't work everywhere

in California, just certain areas and

you don't want to do that obviously with

your whole portfolio, right? You want to

learn more about House Hack, you know,

you can get a 5% yield through

conversion and all the upside in the

stock. Obviously, risk with every

investment, go to houseack.com to learn

more. But that's our, you know, soft

landing narrative. If uh things go poopy

dupy, we got plenty of cash to go buy

the dip and we we would be excited to

buy when interest rates are lower again.

Okay, so Ghoulspeed this morning says if

you do big tariffs like this with the EU

and you start complaining about VAT

tariffs and this negotiation takes a

whole lot longer than the Chinese

negotiations because Europe's going to

be more stubborn, then we're going to be

in a stagflationary situation and that

means we have to wait even longer. See,

with Europe, or I should say with China,

China is China can probably sustain

these 30% tariff rates on them because

they've been working on decoupling from

the United States. I I I don't know that

we really want these extra, you know,

this extra damage to our earnings per

share in markets, but whatever. This is

why most institutions seem to be dumping

stocks uh right now while retail is

buying. Hedge funds are selling,

institutions are selling largest amounts

that we've seen in quite a while. And

retail is literally doing the opposite,

which to me it feels a little uh you

know the buy the dip song where at the

end of the buy the dip song you have

Charles Payne and he's like you're just

mad because retail's now doing what

you're doing and now you're losing and

they're winning. You remember that? I

actually think it's really interesting

because that was around the peak of the

market at the end of 2021. So I don't

know how well it bodess for uh for for

you know us actually discounting real

risk in the market right now especially

since retail is buying the dip like

freaking crazy while you know hedge

funds and institutions are are selling.

You can see this really clearly. I mean

plenty of people post about this over

and over and over again. But here you

can see four-week average of hedge funds

selling four-week average of

institutional selling right negative

negative lines over here. Four-week

average of retail buying. Okay retail is

buying. Everybody else is selling. This

is according to Bank of America at

least. Who knows? Maybe bank Bank Bank

of America is smoking. But I feel like

people are just buying the dip. It's

like, "Oh, cool. Another tariff

opportunity. Great. Means I get to buy

the dip more because I missed the first

dip or whatever, right?" Eh. Or we're

just building more risks in the economy

and at some point the bill is going to

come due. Now, the good news is with buy

now pay later, it seems like the bill

never comes due because now we are

issuing $300 billion of buy now pay

later bonds

underwritten by corporate Wall Street

entities to bring you back to a modern

version of 2008. Basically, you take a

pile of garbage, you wrap it into

something you call an investment

vehicle, you slap a AAA rating on it,

and you sell slices of garbage. That's

what's now happening. And you know what?

It's working. I tweeted yesterday or

posted yesterday that Walmart, Ralph

Lauren, and Home Depot see no consumer

slowdown yet. What do all three of them

have in common? They all offer clarna

buy now pay later baby. Uh in the

meantime Bank of America at least um Mr.

Hartnet is now recommending that you uh

sell hubris and buy humiliation. Now

what could humiliation be? Well on a

10year rolling average of

returns humiliation has to do

with oh treasury bonds. Oops. US 15-year

plus treasuries. Ouch. This is basically

just a slap in the face to TLT. Although

he is saying buy the dip, except instead

of saying buy the dip, he's saying by

humiliation. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. That

makes sense. Uh, okay. Then take a look

at this. This shows you how the economy

is slowing. Look at Mag 7 hiring left

side 2011 to 2021. Money printers

rolling. Look at under the QT era when

the Feds started raising rates and the

vacuum cleaner turned

on. Ouch. That's a whole lot less

hiring. Obviously, jobs market is very

slow and very lagging. So, have to be

very careful for shocks and Donald Trump

continuing to add shock risks here.

Probably not great, but whatever. In the

meantime, retail has found their

favorite investment and that is crypto.

inflows into crypto since

2019 are basically at the moon, whereas

we're starting to see outflows in gold.

How interesting. Okay, what else do we

have? Actually, that's all I have today.

Go to househack.com.