Market Report for Friday, May 30, 2025
Wall Street limped into the weekend like a diplomat on day five of a failed summit. Sure, inflation’s inching toward 2% like the Holy Grail wrapped in red tape, but there’s a strong sense that someone, somewhere, will soon impose a tax.
Level Change 5/30/25 (%)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
+0.1 Dow
-0.3 Nasdaq
-0.1 Nasdaq 100
-0.0 S&P 500
-0.4 S&P 400
-0.4 S&P 600
Despite Friday’s fade, May ended on a high note. The S&P and Nasdaq logged their best month since November 2023 — up 6.2% and 9.6%, respectively — fueled by AI exuberance, a few economic reprieves, and a US tariff policy that turned out less fearsome than feared. It helps that “Trump always chickens out” — the TACO trade.
That could change.
Trade once again hogged the spotlight, with President Trump jumping on Truth Social to accuse China of dragging its feet on tariff rollbacks. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed the frustration, calling talks “a bit stalled,” though he dangled the prospect of a Trump-Xi call. China, for its part, declined to confirm or deny the existence of Donald Trump.
USTR Jamieson Greer said Beijing removed tariffs as promised but is dragging its feet on non-tariff countermeasures, like rare earth restrictions and blacklisting US firms. That’s a problem when your green economy needs Chinese magnets to stay, well, magnetic. If only someone had thought this through in advance. Maybe, I don’t know … planned?
And just when you thought this trade war couldn’t get more inventive, along comes Section 899, the latest weapon from our Beltway Bureau of Unintended Consequences. The so-called “capital war clause” in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” would hike US taxes on investors from “discriminatory” countries. Think France, with its 3% digital services tax aimed squarely at US megatech, or Germany, reportedly weighing a 10% version of its own.
That could weaken foreign demand for Treasuries, just when the US needs every bond buyer it can get. As Deutsche Bank warned, “weaponization of US capital markets into law” may sound patriotic, but does risk spooking the very investors we count on to fund the deficit.
Well, at least the Fed got a rare win.
April’s core PCE rose just 0.1% month-over-month, pushing the year-over-year rate to a post-2021 low of 2.5%. It was the second straight cooler print and lent some credence to the idea that disinflation isn’t a myth after all, even if tariffs haven’t shown up in the numbers yet. No, it’s not enough to pry the Fed from its wait-and-see wall stare, but we can leave the Eccles smelling salts in the drawer.
Costco (+3.1%) rode consumer anxiety to a gain, touting tariff workarounds and the timeless appeal of bulk peanut butter. Dell (-2.1%) missed on EPS but dazzled with $7B in AI server shipments and an order book stuffed to the gills, proving that the next best thing to printing money is being Nvidia-adjacent.
And with that, May closed on a cautious high: tariffs unresolved, tax threats rising, inflation cooling, and AI still gunning for humanity’s user manual.
June arrives Monday. Brace for another chapter in the saga titled Economic Policy as Performance Art.
— Jason Kelly
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