To The Moon

In April 2025, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs that sent the market into a tailspin.

Companies from apparel to automotive reconfigured their supply chains in order to adjust to a seemingly constant flow of tariff changes day after day.

And on Friday, most of those tariffs were deemed illegal by the Supreme Court.

We don’t know if consumers, manufacturers, importers, retailers, or someone else will get the ~$175 billion in tariffs already paid back, but there’s at least some resolution to last year’s biggest wild card.

While the Supreme Court ruled the president can’t put specific tariffs on countries willy-nilly, he can legally put a blanket tariff of up to 15% on all imports (Congress gave that power), which is exactly what President Trump has done.

For now, that seems to be what everyone will have to live with. But it does little to make remedies country-specific, which may change some of the supply chain turmoil. Moving manufacturing from Malaysia to Cambodia, for example, was noise for a lot of businesses. Now, they’ll return to wherever costs are lowest.

I think the biggest positive is the Supreme Court saying the president can’t set economic policy by fiat. That doesn’t mean the next three years will be calm. But maybe some of the most radical impulses will be blocked by courts more quickly, even at the lower level, now that this precedent has been set.

The K-Shaped Economy

One of my Bold Predictions for 2026 was that we would have a recession. We aren’t there, but the cracks are starting to show after weaker-than-expected GDP was reported for Q4 2025, and jobs data continues to be…delayed, flawed, and potentially concerning.

What’s worrying about the economy today is the trend toward haves and have-nots.

This isn’t a new trend. Going back to the mid-2000s (shown below), the unemployment rate has always been higher for less educated workers. But the trends are changing with college-educated unemployment rising a full percentage point over the last 2.5 years, even as the unemployment rate falls for less educated workers.

Is this the impact of AI?

Is it the impact of immigration policy?

What matters for a personal economy is that it’s harder to find a job when you need one. The U.S. economy is essentially flat in job creation after recent revisions, and the only reason unemployment hasn’t jumped is a reduction in labor supply from immigration enforcement.

I’m not pulling the alarm yet, but these trends aren’t great, and they’re worth watching closely, in part because the things that are getting more expensive affect everyone and hit the lowest income hardest, offsetting some of the strength in blue-collar jobs.

Housing and utility costs are rising, and healthcare and insurance aren’t far behind. The good news is, shoes are getting cheaper…

The K-shape of the economy is unique this time around. It’s not “educated vs uneducated,” it’s “employed vs unemployed.”

That’s causing unique shopping patterns. Expensive cars, shoes, and steakhouses are doing well while mid-tier brands are struggling, and budget businesses are booming.

$Volkswagen AG(VWAGY)$ $Kia Motors Corp.(KIMTF)$ $ON Semiconductor(ON)$ $Under Armour(UA)$ $Wal-Mart(WMT)$ $McDonald's(MCD)$ $Texas Roadhouse(TXRH)$ $Portillo’s Inc.(PTLO)$

I note some of these trends because the economy is based on momentum and confidence. If businesses think people will spend more money next year, they’ll invest to capture that opportunity.

If they think spending will pull back, companies will pull back too.

Given the weakness we’ve seen in some areas of consumer discretionary spending and rising costs for staples like electricity, combined with increasing difficulty finding white collar jobs, it’s worth thinking about how resilient the economy is and whether the one bright spot — AI capex spending — is built on a solid footing.

I’m not changing how I invest based on some of my skepticism, but I’m not buying high-flying stocks at inflated valuations if there aren’t profits to back up that optimism.

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