✍️ Maverick Charts of the Week #2: Charts Off the Charts ... Though Back to Breakeven!

Trade war 90-day 'pause' = markets parabolic!

Dear all,

the 2nd edition from the ‘✍️ Maverick Charts of the Week’ series comes with quite some ‘off the charts’ historical charts!

Jaw-dropping rally on Trump’s surprising announcement to put a 90-day pause on some of the lofty ‘reciprocal’ tariffs: dropping country-specific tariffs down to a universal 10% rate for all trade partners except China.

👉 S&P 500 (blue) skyrocketed +9.52% with a one-day gain marking the 3rd biggest since World War II and the biggest gain since 2008

👉 Nasdaq-100 (orange) +12.02% as its largest 1-day jump since January 2001 & 2nd-best day ever

👉 Dow Jones boosted by 7.87% with the biggest advance since Covid March 2020

Fun fact #1: chart below is since April 2nd aka ‘Tariff day’ or ‘Liberation day’ - note how we are very close to get back exactly where we were before all this started: for example the S&P 500 is less than 4% to breakeven!

Fun fact #2: Trump has insisted for days that his tariffs would not be lifted, despite turmoil in the markets and backlash from investors, voters and allies.

Fun fact #3 looking below at the intra-day chart:

👉 at 9:37 AM Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT’

👉 less than 4 hours later the tariff ‘pause’ announcement came and markets took off

He did telegraph it to the world, markets did not believe … until the announcement came! The big question is, will investors listen and act next time this happens?

Let that sink in … and bring the sink if you wish! Food for thought … .

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Going forward:

• unlike the 2018 China trade war, this time around the genie is out of the bottle, hence this will likely be a theme for the next weeks, months if not the entire year. This is a ‘traders’ market! Special situations, asymmetric trades, cheap hedges, great businesses that can be bought for a big discount will likely show up!

• for medium-long term investors (my major approach), zooming out is key as these episodes will be quite irrelevant in the 3-5-10-20 years down the road. Actually these periods can be very beneficial to improve medium-long term returns, hence make the compounding machine work! Recall Warren Buffett on that:

‘… small fractions of these gems can be purchased Monday through Friday on Wall Street and, very occasionally, they sell at bargain prices’

On this key subject, I am currently working on these next 2 special reports where I will outline a key framework and my views:

✍️ Maverick Special Report #5: Big Volatility & Drawdowns = Juicy Returns?

✍️ Maverick Special Report #6: Harvesting Geopolitical Risk Premium Through The 2025 Trade War

P.S. in case you missed the latest 4th Maverick Special Report from February 2025:

✍️ Maverick Special Report #4: Warren Buffett's Cash Pile ... & More!

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Like this, the big positive externalities become the name of the game! Thank you!

Have a great day! And never forget, keep compounding: family, friends, community, capital, knowledge, research and mindset!

Mav 👋 🤝

“Compound interest is both the ultimate and biggest natural hedge!” Maverick Equity Research