There’s an escalating trade war with China underway. US stocks with the most exposure to China just had their second-best day ever.

I am just going to put this here, for posterity:

A basket of US stocks compiled by Goldman Sachs with the biggest sales exposure to China (which includes Apple, Nike, and Tesla) had its second-best session on record on a day when China slapped US imports with 84% tariffs and the US re-upped to 125% tariffs on China.

The cohort rose 10.8%, outperforming the S&P 500’s 9.5% gain.

Once more, with feeling:

A basket of US stocks with the biggest sales exposure to China had its second-best session on record on the day China slapped US imports with 84% tariffs and the US upped its tariffs to 125% on China!

The only session these stocks did better in was the start of the bull market during the depths of the Covid pandemic.

Maybe it’s panic buying. Maybe it’s the hope that watering down tariffs on (maybe) everyone else is a precursor to dialing down the heat on China, eventually. It should also be noted that some of these companies, namely Nike, have a lot of operations in Southeast Asia outside of China that they’re breathing a sweet sigh of relief on, and may potential shift even more production there, where possible.

But this gets my vote for craziest chart on an absolutely crazy day, and it’s not particularly close.