Trump traders are back in business (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Trump trades soar on signs president recognizes economic, political risks

4/23/25 1:43PM

It’s been a while since we checked in on the Trump trades that surged in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election victory last year.

Shares of these diverse groups of stocks (and crypto) — seen as likely to outperform thanks to Trumpist policy shifts, favorable regulatory treatment, and perhaps murkier benefits owing to cozy personal or political connections — romped Wednesday, as Trump seemed to soften his stance on tariffs and dumping the head of the Fed, policies that spooked global markets over the last couple months.

Palantir, the large US government contractor whose cofounder and largest shareholder is Republican mega-donor and sometime Trump adviser Peter Thiel, is one of the largest contributors to the S&P 500’s gain.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the money-losing parent of Trump’s personal Truth Social media site, is up nearly 12%.
Tesla, Trump ally Elon Musk’s battered electric vehicle company, is also up big, despite an ugly earnings report yesterday.
Axon, maker of tasers, body cams, and other products for security services, thought to be a beneficiary of the White House push for mass deportations, is having its best day since April 9, when Trump announced a temporary pause to his tariff policies. Private prison and ICE contractor GEO Group has had a more muted gain.
Bitcoin’s, which seemed to get the news slightly ahead of the stock market, is basically flat today, though it posted its biggest gain since April 9 yesterday.

As you can see from the chart above, some of these assets are now above water for the first time since Trump began what’s widely seen as an economically — and, if you look at his approval numbers on the economy, politically — disastrous month and a half tariff rampage that pitted him head-to-head with financial markets.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on. For sure, if backing away from tariffs reduces the risk of recession, and leaving Powell at the Fed reduces long-term interest rates, that would be good for most companies. And it has been today. (At last glance, more than 483 companies in the S&P 500 are in the green.)

But with the second- and third-biggest gainers in the index, Palantir and Tesla, there’s a distinctly Trumpy vibe to the market.

Of course, these companies aren’t just Trump trades. You could put them in any other number of buckets: high-beta momentum trades, AI trades, meme stocks, retail favorites, large-cap tech, and on and on.

But it stands to reason that if you’re betting these stocks will do well by basking in the bronzed glow of President Trump, any shift to shore up a political position weakened by the last couple months of tariff war would be a good thing. At least, that’s how I read it.

Matt Phillips2h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

Matt Phillips5h

BNP upgrades Seagate on more durable cycle

Seagate Technology Holdings was up in early trading after analysts at BNP Paribas upgraded the shares to “outperform” from “neutral” and lifted their price target to $380 a share, implying a gain of almost 15% from where the stock is currently trading.

The maker of the somewhat stodgy technology known as hard disk drives — or HDDs in tech lingo — was one of the top stocks in the S&P 500 for much of last year as it was swept up in the AI data center trade.

Data centers need tons of storage capacity, and demand from hyperscalers has driven up prices and created shortages for disk drives, an industry that is dominated by a duopoly of Seagate and Western Digital. (BNP also maintained its “outperform” rating on WDC in a note Wednesday.)

The analysts at BNP say they pushed by the buy button on the stock after becoming more convinced that the upswing in sales was durable, writing:

“We have witnessed a structural shift happening in HDD industry, toward 1) an effective duopoly, 2) higher mix toward data centers, and 3) disciplined capex investments. These have supported our expectations of long-term, through-cycle profitability for the HDD industry. We are now upgrading Seagate from Neutral to Outperform as we are gaining greater conviction that robust data center storage demand could drive an upcycle longer than we initially expected. We think a secular re-rating of Seagate (as well as Western Digital) to over 20x is justified.”

Nate Becker5h

Stocks jump as Trump says “I won’t use force” to acquire Greenland

In a speech in Davos, Switzerland, US President Donald Trump said he won’t use force to acquire Greenland, sending stocks higher at the open.

“We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump told the crowd, referring to his pursuit of Greenland, which has roiled markets recently. “People thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

He seemed to indicate that Denmark, which owns Greenland, could rebuff the US’s overtures to acquire the country without military retaliation.

“They have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said. Throughout his speech, Trump constantly reiterated his desire for the US to own Greenland.

Stocks rose at the open, with the S&P 500 rising 0.3%. S&P 500 futures, which had been down Wednesday morning, jumped after his comments.

J. Edward Moreno5h

J&J slips despite cheery 2026 guidance

Johnson & Johnson reported fourth-quarter sales that beat expectations and gave rosy guidance for 2026.

The company said it expects to bring in between $100 billion and $101 billion in revenue this year, compared to the $98.9 billion analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The drugmaker also expects to report between $11.43 and $11.63 in annual adjusted earnings per share, compared to the $11.48 that Wall Street was expecting.

Despite beating expectations, J&J, the first major drugmaker to report earnings results this year, fell by more than 2% in premarket trading.