“We’re going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning” (see it here)

Trump proclaimed during the long-anticipated “Liberation Day” in which he unveiled Executive Order 14257. A fun parcel of: 10% baseline tariff on all imports into the U.S., followed by country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs targeting around 60 nations effective April 9:

• Cambodia: 49%

• Vietnam 46%

• China 54% (existing 20% + 34%)

• EU: 20%

• India: 26%

  …and many more

As expected, markets spontaneously combusted. The Nasdaq fell 5.8%, officially entering bear market territory, down over 20% from its December high. The S&P 500 dropped nearly 6%, its worst single-day decline since 2022, while the Dow tumbled 2,231 points on Friday, ending the week in correction territory¹. This marks the market’s worst days since the 2020 COVID crash. Investors reportedly pulled a record $6.6 trillion out of U.S. stocks over two days—the largest market cap wipeout in history.

Recession fears = skyrocketing. Within an hour of Trump’s epic announcement, traders on Polymarket hiked the odds of a US recession from 38% to 48%.

But if the markets were panicking, Trump definitely wasn’t; he doubled down and declared his economic policies “will never change” and used the moment to cheerlead investors: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”.

Ripples extended to Australia. The ASX plunging 2.1% on Friday and is eyeing a 3.5% weekly loss — its worst since 2022. Tech and energy stocks were affected most, with Woodside down 9.3%, Santos off 8.5%, and Breville tumbling 11.5% as supply chain risk took centre stage.

Bond traders are now pricing in four RBA rate cuts this year, up from two just days ago, as global growth fears force policymakers into rethink mode. HSBC, ANZ, and Barrenjoey are all now tipping a May rate cut as confidence plummets.

After years of buildup, Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 4.15% ) is finally launching its Starlink competitor. On April 9, the first operational batch of Project Kuiper satellites will blast off from Cape Canaveral aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket, marking a huge step in Amazon’s mission to bring broadband from space.

Kuiper’s goal mirrors that of Musk’s Starlink: Beam high-speed internet to homes, governments, and businesses around the world—including those still stuck in Wi-Fi dead zones.

Amazon has committed $10 billion to the project, and it’s on a clock: The FCC says they need at least 1,618 satellites up by July 2026—half of the planned 3200+ constellation. This mandate ensures companies that are awarded orbital spectrum rights actually follow through on deploying satellites. Which is why, given the pressure, they have already inked deals (with actual pens 💀) for 80+ launches from rocket companies including Blue Origin, ULA, and SpaceX.

“We’ve tested everything we can on the ground” said Kuiper VP Rajeev, “but some things you only learn in space” (nice aura-farming).

Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▼ 7.91% ) is calling the Japanese yen the hedge² against what could be a messy year for the US economy.

With Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff salvo rolling out this week, analysts are bracing for a potential 2-4% hit to US GDP and markets are already showing signs of nerves. Enter the yen. Goldman expects it to strengthen by as much as 10%, from 157 to 140 yen per dollar by year-end. That’s a big move for a currency pair that usually creeps.

Why? Because the yen shines when US equities and real yields³ fall which is exactly the cocktail forming as tariffs, inflation worries, and political chaos start shaking confidence. In fact, the yen rallied 3% just this week on the back of reciprocal tariffs hitting headlines.

And while hedge funds were mostly short yen earlier this year, they’re now quietly unwinding those bets. Goldman’s FX⁴ team says the yen is looking more attractive as a downside play than it has in years.

Johnson & Johnson $JNJ ( ▼ 4.12% ) just lost its third attempt to settle over 90,000 cancer lawsuits tied to its talc-based baby powder. On Monday, a bankruptcy judge in Houston rejected a request to approve a $9 billion settlement that would’ve resolved nearly all current and future claims. The judge said the process for approving the deal was flawed—many claimants⁵ weren’t clearly informed about the settlement and weren’t given enough time to vote, making it impossible to tell how much genuine support there actually was.

The lawsuits allege that J&J’s baby powder caused cancer because it was contaminated with asbestos, a dangerous mineral that can cause serious illness when inhaled. J&J has always denied these claims and insists its products were safe—but internal company documents revealed concerns about possible contamination. The company has since stopped selling talc-based powder worldwide.

The legal saga goes back to 2021, when J&J pulled a controversial move called the “Texas two-step.” It created a separate company, LTL Management, moved all the baby powder lawsuits into it, and then had that company declare bankruptcy—essentially trying to wall off the legal trouble from the rest of J&J’s business. Critics saw it as a way to protect J&J’s money while dodging full accountability. So far, courts have rejected the strategy multiple times, including this week.

North Korea is currently running the most lucrative digital crime syndicates in the world with crypto and identity theft on their laundry list of crimes.

Fourteen North Korean nationals were found to be faking American identities to land remote tech jobs. Posing as innocent IT freelancers, they gained access to company networks, planted malware, and funnelled funds straight to the regime. Now the whole “return to work” push makes more sense…

Additionally, on July 18, 2024, hackers linked to Pyongyang pulled off a $200 million heist from WazirX, India’s biggest crypto exchange bringing their grand crypto haul to over $6 billion in the past decade. That’s not just top of the leaderboard — it is the leaderboard.

And they’re not slowing down. In February of this year, they made headlines again by raiding Bybit for a record-setting $1.5 billion, the largest single crypto theft in history. All that stolen digital gold is keeping the lights on in the most sanctioned country on Earth and funding Kim Jong Un’s nuclear dreams.

What makes it even wilder is that these elite cybercriminals operate in a country where most people can’t even get online. North Korea reportedly has 8,000 trained hackers, groomed from a young age like Olympic athletes but the hustle doesn’t stop at hacking.

• Full List of Liberation Day Tariffs: see them here

• A Giant rat named Ronin has won the world record for most mines detected by a rat after having sniffed out more than 100 landmines across Cambodia after decades of war.

• Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces five more counts in a new sex trafficking indictment.

• Nintendo releases Switch 2 with a U.S. release date of June 5. However, pre-orders have been delayed indefinitely due to tariff concerns.

• Both Australian political parties promise to reclaim the port of Darwin from the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group ahead of the May election. The facility reportedly hosts 2,000 US Marines, making it crucial for Australia’s defense cooperation with the U.S.

• A deal to sell off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new, majority American-owned company has been paused after China signaled it would not approve the arrangement following Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on Chinese imports.

1. (A) Market Correction: When a stock index drops by 10% or more.

2. (Currency) Hedging: Mitigating exchange rate risk through futures, forwards or options contracts.

3. Real Yields: Bond yields (YTM) subtracting expected inflation, the most important metric of return for bonds because inflation eats away at the purchasing power of future coupons and principal payments

4. FX: Foreign Exchange.

5. Claimants: Individuals, in this case, who filed lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson. They are the people seeking compensation through the proposed $9 billion settlement.

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