A cargo ship full of shipping containers at the port of Oakland as trade tensions escalate over U.S. tariffs, in Oakland, California, on March 6, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
“Flexibility” connotes openness to change. U.S. President Donald Trump expressed Friday the possibility of being flexible with tariffs, which may have helped stocks tick up, pushing the three key U.S. benchmarks into the green for the week.
But, in its suggestion of adapting to circumstances, “flexibility” also signals uncertainty, something anathema to the market. Trump’s comments must also be taken into context. He qualified that “there’ll be flexibility, but basically it’s reciprocal,” and appeared to dismiss the idea of carving out exceptions for countries.
In other words, the flexibility Trump espouses doesn’t seem so much a one-sided benevolence but a strategy to bend others’ wills.
We will probably not have any clarification on how the reciprocal tariffs will play out until April 2, the date Trump said they would begin — provided he isn’t similarly flexible with the start date.
What you need to know today
‘Flexibility’ with tariffs: Trump
Trump told reporters Friday that “there’ll be flexibility” regarding his tariff plans, “but basically it’s reciprocal,” suggesting that he could act in response to any adjustments by trade partners. However, Trump downplayed the idea of granting more exceptions, saying that “once you do that for one, you have to do that for all.” The White House has said reciprocal tariffs go into effect April 2.
China’s market will open up: Vice Premier
China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng reassured foreign business leaders that Beijing will continue to open up its market and welcome more investment, according to a readout from the Ministry of Commerce of a Sunday meeting with top executives from Apple and Mastercard, among other multinational companies. At the gathering, He also discussed deepening economic and trade partnerships between the U.S. and China.
U.S. stocks break losing streak
Major U.S. indexes climbed on Friday to end a four-week losing streak. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.2%. But FedEx, a bellwether for the economy, tumbled 6.5% after cutting its earnings outlook. Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell Monday. Singapore’s Straits Times Index, however, advanced 0.18% as the country’s consumer price index for February came in at 0.9% year on year, its slowest growth in four years.
Mediocre Seven
Out of the Magnificent Seven group of stocks that led the stock market’s bull charge in 2024, six are already tracking for significant year-to-date losses, led by a 40% drop in shares of Tesla. Meta Platform is the only exception, holding on to a slim gain. Earlier this month, the megacaps lost more than $750 billion in market value in the worst day for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite since 2022.
South Korean acting president reinstated
South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Monday struck down Prime Minister Han Duck-soo’s impeachment, local media reported, reinstating him as acting president. He will take over the post from Choi Sang-mok. Han was impeached by the opposition Democratic Party in December, after he reportedly refused to appoint three justices to the Constitutional Court that was looking into the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
[PRO] Eyes on U.S. economic data
Investors should keep an eye on the U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index for February, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, out Friday. Other economic data to watch for are PMI readings for March out Monday and final U.S. gross domestic product figures for the fourth quarter out Thursday. That said, it is unlike markets will march decisively until Trump makes his move.
And finally…
A view of the Ant Group buildings in Chongqing, China, on March 23, 2025.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Alibaba-affiliate Ant combines Chinese and U.S. chips to slash AI development costs
The Jack Ma-founded Ant Group, an Alibaba affiliate, is using both Chinese and U.S.-made semiconductors for building more efficient artificial intelligence models, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The combination of chips not only reduces the time and cost of training AI models, but also limits reliance on a single supplier such as Nvidia, the source said, noting the industry trend of tapping multiple networks, known as “mixture of experts” — a technique that allows models to be trained with much less compute.
The company earlier this month said in a paper it was able to use lower-cost hardware to effectively train its own MoE models, reducing computing costs by 20%.
