(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

CPI looks good for Trump trades

A surge in inflation would have been a hit to the president’s reputation. Instead, the print was tame and coincided with a bounce in stocks that soared after the election, but have recently broken down.

Matt Phillips

3/12/25 2:49PM

What’s good for the White House is good for the Trump trades.

That’s about the most sense we can make of the surge in momentum stocks this morning following a slightly softer-than-expected CPI inflation report.

We’ve outlined before that some of the best-performing assets since last November’s presidential election have been companies whose businesses could theoretically benefit from ideological and political pushes of the new administration. They include private prison and immigration contractor GEO and taser and body cam maker Axon Enterprise, both of which are supposed to benefit from Trump administration regulatory and policy changes. Bitcoin’s is another, as it was expected to rise on the use of taxpayer funds to buy crypto in the form of a strategic bitcoin reserve, as well as the loosening of rules on crypto.

Palantir and Tesla, two stocks wildly popular among retail traders whose leadership is seen as either ideologically or financially tied to President Trump, were also major beneficiaries of tailwinds since the election and jumped on the CPI news.

How does this all relate to the softer-than-expected CPI report this morning? I don’t think it does, exactly. And importantly, there’s a broader tide that’s been lifting dozens of momentum stocks, including Tesla and Palantir, over the past couple of days as investors are unwinding some of the momentum unwind that happened over the past three weeks.

But a surge in inflation (which didn’t materialize in February) would have weakened Trump’s political footing by potentially setting the stage for the worst of all economic worlds: stagflation. That would’ve made it more difficult for Trump to deliver whatever benefits — like the president effectively starring in a live Tesla commercial against the backdrop of the White House — traders seem to expect these companies to enjoy under his administration.

In other words, softer inflation news somewhat reduces the risk that the company could lose access to whatever largesse the administration may bestow.

Or it could just provide a decent exit point for those who were looking for one.

Max Knoblauch6h

Nike’s China business declines for seventh straight quarter

Sportswear kingpin Nike reported results for its third quarter, which ended in February, after the bell Tuesday. The stock fell about 3% in after-hours trading.

For fiscal Q3, Nike reported:

Earnings of $0.35 per share, comfortably above the Wall Street consensus of $0.29 per share compiled by FactSet.
$11.28 billion in total revenue, roughly in line with the $11.26 billion estimate.

Nike’s sales in China — where the company earns about 15% of its revenue — fell 7% to $1.62 billion. That’s its seventh straight quarter of sales declines in the market, though this quarter’s was less than feared. The company had issued weak guidance for this quarter considering continued softness in the region.

“This quarter we took meaningful actions to improve the health and quality of our business,” said Nike CEO Elliott Hill. “The pace of progress is different across the portfolio and the areas we prioritized first continue to drive momentum.”

Nike shares are trading near decade lows this month, as tariffs continue to weigh on profits and shipping costs rise amid the war with Iran. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was down 17% year to date.

Luke Kawa, Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks end worst quarter since 2022 with best day since May

Optimism that the end of the war may be near sent stocks surging.

Max Knoblauch8h

Oil-sensitive travel stocks pop following Iran state media reporting on potential war resolution

Travel stocks are surging on Tuesday as oil prices fall following reports from Iranian state media that President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country has “the necessary will to end this war,” but would only do so with guarantees that “prevent the recurrence of aggression.”

The war has sent oil prices and refining margins surging this month, causing airlines and cruise lines to cut profit forecasts despite reported high demand.

Following Tuesday’s update, shares of the big four US airlines (Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines) all climbed, along with smaller rivals including JetBlue. US airlines have stopped fuel hedging in recent years, increasing their exposure to upward swings in oil prices.

Cruise stocks also rallied, with Carnival and Norwegian up more than 6% and Royal Caribbean up about 5%.

J. Edward Moreno11h

The FDA is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, the NYT reports

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to lift restrictions on certain peptides, allowing the experimental, often injectable substances to be sold by compounding pharmacies, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The potential move was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, and teased by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in late February.

Peptides have boomed in popularity recently, with search interest for “peptides” surpassing “ozempic” this month. Many of them are currently understudied and not approved for human use, a rule consumers are able to bypass by purchasing them from suppliers that sell them for, ostensibly, research purposes only.

As reports of the FDA changing its stance of peptides mount, consumer health companies like Hims & Hers and Superpower have been getting ready to roll out their peptide offerings as soon as they get the FDA's blessing.

The peptide gold rush: How impending deregulation could supercharge a shadow industry

Matt Phillips12h

Memory stocks bounce as Bernstein analyst calls TurboQuant fears “overdone”

Memory stocks rose Tuesday, after Bernstein analysts called the recent panic over Google’s TurboQuant AI algorithm “overdone.”

Bernstein analyst Mark Newman wrote:

“[Hard disk drive] and Memory stocks have sold off significantly due in part to fears from Google’s TurboQuant report. This however, should have zero impact on HDD demand and negligible impact on NAND demand. Given the stock sell-off we see this as an attractive entry point for Seagate Technology Holdings, Western Digital and Sandisk’s and upgrade WDC to Outperform.”

All three stocks were up early Tuesday, as was memory chip maker Micron.

Today’s rally stands in stark contrast to the pummeling these shares have endured over the last week, after Google Research published a technical paper on March 24 detailing its TurboQuant AI algorithm, which compresses the amount of data associated with AI operations without affecting the accuracy of AI models.

That was seen as a threat to surging AI demand for memory storage, which has supercharged prices for memory chips and memory-related stocks over the last year.