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

Trump trades soar on signs president recognizes economic, political risks

4/23/25 2:43PM

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.

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks eke out gains on hopes for a path forward for reopening the Strait of Hormuz

Stocks rebounded on news that Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman to “monitor transit” through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

Matt Phillips8h

AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight

Small-cap AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions surged Thursday after posting better-than-expected Q2 revenue and profit numbers Wednesday after the close, along with an increase in full-year sales and profit guidance.

The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and cooling systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed “Liberation Day” in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October amid a surge of call options activity, which tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.

For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today, too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of 1:15 p.m. ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, FactSet data shows.

Penguin Solutions Stock Takes Off On AI Bolstered Outlook

The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

Luke Kawa11h

Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism

Potentially imminent end to the war? Buy optics stocks.

Maybe not? Buy optics stocks anyway.

Effectively all the juice left in the AI trade is coming from optics (and memory) stocks. And the latter group is taking a bit of a breather today while the former continues to surge.

Shares of Ciena Corp., Lumentum, and Coherent are building on recent big gains and among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 near midday, while Applied Optoelectronics is also surging on Thursday.

These companies all provide solutions that help information move around in data centers, and thus are key beneficiaries of the aggressive capex plans of hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum in deals that also include purchase commitments.

Matt Phillips11h

Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market

Satellite-services-from-space stocks surged Thursday after reports that Amazon is in talks to buy Globalstar, which provides voice and connectivity services from its satellite network. It also can’t hurt that the general mood around space is ebullient, following the successful launch of Artemis II on Thursday.

Planet Labs and ViaSat also soared on the news.

The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Hyunsoo Rim, David Crowther

Can Sandisk do the double?

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The S&P 500 just had its worst quarter in years. Here are the biggest winners and losers.

Sandisk and energy stocks soared while software names sank amid a broad sell-off in tech stocks.

Balancing balls of different sizes on pink seesaws creating equilibrium