>>> Weekend Papers Summary

FINANCIAL TIMES
-US and its G7 partners have warned Moscow that they could expand sanctions and use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, as Donald Trump seeks to win over Vladimir Putin. After Kiev signed up to a 30-day truce, Moscow signaled reluctance to do so immediately. US secretary of state Marco Rubio and his counterparts released a joint statement on possible steps against Russia, mentioning imposing further penalties if the Kremlin did not fully implement a ceasefire. Rubio cautioned that Trump does not want to impose sanctions right now, as he aims to attract people on both sides to a peace negotiation process.
-The US and Israel are in talks with countries in east Africa about taking in Palestinians from Gaza as part of President Donald Trump's plan to evict residents and build a "Riviera of the Middle East." Israeli officials have contacted Somalia and Sudan, while US diplomats have been in contact with Somaliland. Israel is "in conversations" with countries around the world, including in Africa, about taking in Gazans, although the talks are not that advanced at the moment. US officials have begun discussions with Somaliland's presidency about a possible deal to recognize the de facto state in return for the establishment of a military base near the port of Berbera on the Red Sea coast.
-The Trump administration has imposed new tariffs on imports worth $1T, increasing the total to $1.4T assuming exemptions from Canada and Mexico expire. Corporations argue there is no clarity on the tariffs' intended objectives, such as higher federal revenue, reshoring production to the US, or reducing drug trafficking or illegal migration. This has led to increased business uncertainty, delays in investment decisions, and a decline in growth. The NFIB's index of policy uncertainty among smaller enterprises is approaching record highs, indicating a growing concern for the economy.
-The US Senate has passed a bill to prevent a government shutdown, passing 54-46 to keep funding the government just before a shutdown would have started. Republican senator Rand Paul voted against the measure, while Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and independent Angus King helped pass it. Some Democrats helped Republicans push through the measure, which will fund the federal government until September 30. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, eight other Democrats, and King sided with Republicans in bringing the continuing resolution to a final vote. Republicans control the Senate but require a "supermajority" to approve the procedural vote, which overcame a potential filibuster. The bill now heads to President Donald Trump's desk for signing.
-Big companies and non-profit groups are removing or rewriting climate change references on their websites, similar to US government departments' actions in response to Donald Trump's policies. Financial Times analysis shows that statements on climate change from leading corporations like Walmart and Kraft Heinz have been deleted or rewritten over the past year, while a Republican backlash against green action intensifies and companies roll back their net zero targets. Trump has launched a sweeping attack on environmental policy since taking office, and his administration has started to remove or downgrade mentions of climate change across US government websites.
-China is planning to hold a meeting between President Xi Jinping and global chief executives this month, as international business leaders gather in Beijing for an annual summit. Authorities in Beijing have approached chief executives planning to attend the China Development Forum (CDF), the country's premier business assembly. The meeting with Xi is expected to take place on March 28, following the CDF. The meeting and invitee list are still being negotiated, as many CEOs are reluctant to wait in Beijing after the CDF, which will be held on March 23 and 24. Some of the invited business leaders may cancel their attendance at the CDF. Around 72 global chief executives are on the initial list of attendees for the CDF, including Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Albert Bourla from Pfizer, Cristiano Amon from Qualcomm, Evan Greenberg from Chubb, Aramco's Amin H Nasser, Masahiro Kihara from Mizuho, Bill Winters of Standard Chartered, Patrick Pouyanné from Total, and Vincent Clerc of AP Møller-Maersk.
-President Vladimir V. Putin has demanded that Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region of Russia surrender to Russia, following talks with a US special envoy in Moscow. Putin said he was open to the U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal but suggested he would seek to negotiate over a slew of issues. This comes after President Trump said the United States had "very good and productive" discussions with Putin about a potential cease-fire. Putin's televised comments came shortly after Trump on social media urged the Russian leader to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers struggling to hold onto a patch of land in the Kursk region of Russia. Trump has strongly requested that their lives be spared, as he has been in talks with Putin about a potential ceasefire.
-A senior Islamic State leader, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’i, was killed in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation on Friday. The killing comes as the group has been reconstituting in Syria, carrying out more attacks than at any time since it lost control of its territory nearly six years ago. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani called the Islamic State leader who was killed “one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world.” Iraqi forces have conducted an aggressive antiterrorism campaign over the last two years, disrupting, killing, and detaining a number of the Islamic State cells operating in the country with backing from the United States. The killing of a senior Islamic State leader in the Middle East comes as the group has been reconstituting in Syria, carrying out more attacks than at any time since it lost control of its territory nearly six years ago. There were more than 300 attacks in Syria alone in 2024, according to the United Nations.
-Berlin has invested €100B in new equipment for the German armed forces since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz plans to allow unlimited borrowing to fund defence spending, but manpower remains a major issue. Germany's armed forces commissioner, Eva Högl, warns that the country is not closer to its goal of having 203,000 active troops by 2031 due to a slight decline in the armed forces size last year, partly due to a high number of dropouts. The military has taken steps to stem the outflow of young recruits, including a notice period to avoid emotional decisions. However, senior army commanders warn that Generation Z members, known for their efforts to reshape corporate culture, may have different ideas and outlooks due to their different upbringings.
-Saudi Arabia's consultancy boom is slowing down as the country reassesses its spending and the large sums paid to outside advisers for infrastructure projects. The market grew by 38% in 2022 and 25% in 2023, but is expected to expand by 13% this year after 14% growth in 2024, according to industry research group Source Global. The slowdown comes as Riyadh grapples with subdued oil prices, the scale of its investment commitments, and the need to show returns after years of frenzied expenditure. The Public Investment Fund imposed a year-long ban on PwC being given new advisory work, partly linked to government frustration over the large sums spent on consultants.
-The US has imposed visa restrictions on Thai officials involved in the forced repatriation of Uyghur Muslims, as part of a policy to support groups subject to torture in China. The policy targets foreign officials who are complicit in efforts to forcibly return ethnic or religious minorities at risk of persecution to China. The US is committed to combating China's efforts to pressure governments to forcibly return Uyghurs and other groups to China, where they are subject to torture and enforced disappearances. Thailand, a defense treaty ally of the US, is nervous about antagonizing China, which is more important to the south-east Asian nation from a trade perspective.
-Greenland's political leaders have condemned US President Donald Trump's repeated desire to take over the Arctic island as "unacceptable." The leaders of all five parties in Greenland's parliament issued an unprecedented joint statement after Trump reiterated his belief that the US will eventually control the island. The statement, including current Prime Minister Múte Egede and likely successor Jens-Frederik Nielsen, stated that they find this behavior unacceptable towards friends and allies in a defense alliance. Trump's renewed interest in Greenland dominated parliamentary elections, with the island's Demokraatit winning by promising independence from Denmark but at a cautious pace.

NEW YORK TIMES
-The Senate has narrowly averted a government shutdown by passing a GOP-written stopgap spending measure that funds the government through September 30. The measure was passed in a 54-46, nearly party-line vote, with the key vote coming earlier when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and nine other Democrats joined Republicans in allowing the measure to advance. This effectively thwarted a potential filibuster by their own party. President Trump has vowed to use his power to exact retribution on his opponents, assailing the "weaponization" of the Justice Department under his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who said the law was used to punish the "innocent" and "reward the wicked."
-Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, has defended himself in the face of a Democratic backlash for voting with Republicans for a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown. Schumer said he was willing to take political hits to protect his members and constituents from a longer-term disaster. Despite the intense backlash, many Democratic lawmakers and activists protested Schumer's decision to shrink from a shutdown fight. The five-term senator shrugged off the prospect of a primary challenge that could cost him his job and said he was doing the right thing. He stated that there is no off-ramp for a government shutdown, and the off-ramp is in the hands of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE.
-In a speech to the Justice Department, President Trump expressed his desire to combat the "weaponization" of the department, despite using its powers to punish enemies and reward allies. The event, held in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, was billed as a major policy address to reposition the department from the purported political "weaponization" of the Biden era to a renewed focus on crime, punishment, and fighting drugs. However, in an hourlong speech, Trump veered from his prepared remarks to lash out at lawyers and former prosecutors by name in a venue dedicated to the impartial administration of justice. He also accused the department's previous leadership of trying to destroy him and declared former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the head of a "crime" family.
-The Trump administration is considering targeting 43 countries as part of a new travel ban on the United States, broader than the restrictions imposed during President Trump's first term. A draft list of recommendations developed by diplomatic and security officials suggests a "red" list of 11 countries whose citizens would be flatly barred from entering the United States. The countries include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
-Columbia University has arrested a second person linked to pro-Palestinian protests, Leqaa Kordia, after overstaying a student visa. Kordia, a Palestinian and from the West Bank, was arrested in Newark on Thursday. Her student visa was terminated in January 2022, and she was arrested by the New York City police last April for her role in a campus demonstration. The Homeland Security Department released a video on Friday that it said showed a Columbia student, Ranjani Srinivasan, preparing to enter Canada after her student visa was revoked.
-The University of Minnesota, among around 140 colleges under federal scrutiny, has largely barred itself from issuing official statements about "matters of public concern or public interest." The policy, in the works for months, was not a direct response to the Trump administration's February announcement that it would investigate whether Minnesota and nine other universities had failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination. The University of Minnesota's vote by the board of regents fits into the scramble by universities to undercut accusations that they have supported, or downplayed, antisemitic behavior or political activity. Schools have come under fierce Republican criticism over their responses to protests over the war in Gaza.
-A rapid outbreak of wildfires fueled by dry conditions and hurricane-force winds spread across the Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma on Friday, prompting evacuations, wreaking havoc on the roads, and leaving thousands without power. The fires had destroyed some homes in Oklahoma and at least three people had died in crashes in Texas, according to officials there. Emergency crews in both states were scrambling to keep up with the blazes popping up across the map.
-President Trump and his allies accuse South Africa of discriminating against and killing white people, warning that it could happen in America if antiracism laws aren't stopped. They claim that South Africa is a terrible place for white people, with discrimination, job loss, and constant threats of violence or land theft by a corrupt, Black-led government. However, data shows that white people own at least half of South Africa's land, are not more vulnerable to violent crime than other people, and are far better off than Black people on virtually every economic scale.
-The UK, five years after leaving the European Union, has found a new role on the global stage as Prime Minister Keir Starmer's diplomacy on Ukraine has put the country back in a familiar role. Starmer and his top aides have counseled President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in phone calls and face-to-face meetings about how to mend fences with President Trump after their White House meeting. The prime minister has energetically lobbied the American president for security guarantees to deter President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from future aggression.
-A group of volunteers in Mexico has discovered a mass grave hidden in western Mexico. The group discovered three underground cremation ovens, burned human remains, hundreds of bone shards, discarded personal items, and figurines of Santa Muerte, the Holy Death. The Mexican authorities were notified of the discovery and later found 96 shell casings of various calibers and metal gripping rings at the ranch. The discovery was dominating local newspapers and TV reports, and the search group was referring to the site as an "extermination camp." The Mexican authorities are now investigating the discovery and are considering a new deal to end wildcat strikes by New York prison guards. The discovery has sparked debates over the potential connection between the mass grave and the ongoing search for missing relatives.

NEW YORK POST
-Iraq's Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, announced the death of Abu Khadija, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The operation was carried out by Iraqi national intelligence service and US-led coalition forces. The prime minister referred to al-Rifai as one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world. US President Donald Trump reacted to the news, stating that al-Rifai's "miserable life was terminated" and that his life was terminated in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government.
-President Trump is engaged in a tariff war with Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and China to reform the US economy for the long term. Domestic US steel and aluminum manufacturers, like US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs, are expected to benefit from Trump's 25% levy on key materials. Century Aluminum, the US's largest primary aluminum producer, believes Trump's tariffs will drive a resurgence of domestic aluminum production. The tariffs are expected to help rebalance trade. Meanwhile, steel prices have surged, with hot rolled coil costs reaching $945 per short ton and aluminum costs reaching over $990 per metric ton.

FT : EU explores new military intelligence satellites to cut reliance on US

EU explores new military intelligence satellites to cut reliance on US
Donald Trump’s temporary withdrawal of sharing information with Ukraine has galvanised Brussels’s efforts

Brussels is exploring building a new satellite network to provide military intelligence as doubts mount over the US’s commitment to European defence. 

The system would aim to partly replace US capabilities, after President Donald Trump’s pause on intelligence sharing with Ukraine this month highlighted Europe’s reliance on America.

“Given the changes in the geopolitical situation, the European Commission is considering expanding its satellite capacities to improve geospatial intelligence support for security,” defence and space commissioner Andrius Kubilius told the Financial Times.

The new satellite network would be used to detect threats such as the movement of forces and to co-ordinate military action. Discussions have just begun, but the Lithuanian said the bloc needed a network to complement other programmes used for navigation and earth observation.

It would need to produce updated information more often than the low-orbit Copernicus, which monitors climate change and natural disasters but only generates images about every 24 hours.

Accepting that the project would be expensive and take time to build, Kubilius said he would ask member states if they wanted a “temporary commercial approach”. 

“We are looking to create a specific system as an earth observation governmental service. It would have high technology and high data availability.” The system would operate in low Earth orbit, he said. Such networks require dozens of satellites.

He said the best commercial systems can track targets and military deployments with updates every 30 minutes.

The Commission is also procuring IRIS², its own multi-orbit broadband network in low Earth orbit. This year it will complete the Govsatcom programme, which will link member state systems. 

Kubilius was speaking ahead of the launch of a defence plan next week. The Commission has made available €150bn in loans to member states and will allow them to exclude some defence spending from its fiscal rules, which would permit them to commit up to €650bn more.

The plan, seen by the FT, would also allow member states to ask the Commission to procure weapons, pooling demand to secure better prices.

The Commission has yet to determine how spending should be restricted, but President Ursula von der Leyen has said the funds should be spent on European products. 

Kubilius said countries included within that remit would include Norway and “I hope” the UK.

Turkey was “still under discussion”, he said. But he pointed out that Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, which holds the rotating chair of the EU, met Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 13, which was a “visible symbol”.

He said the funds could also be used to buy weapons from Ukraine for its armed forces. They were half the price of western ones and “and of course it supports the Ukrainian economy”, he said.

Kubilius said the plan would highlight strategic areas in which EU countries are too dependent on the US. These include airlift capacity, air-to-air refuelling, and air warning and control. 

He would also prioritise a missile defence system, which could cost €500bn.  

“We are naked,” he said. “Are we going to develop that air defence each country alone or collectively? I feel it’s better to have a joint system to co-ordinate to cover the whole territory. But that is not for us to decide.”

WSJ : How to Tell If the Stock-Market Selloff Has Hit Bottom

How to Tell If the Stock-Market Selloff Has Hit Bottom

It doesn't quite feel like it's time to buy just yet. But here are three tests to help you decide.

Anyone trying to make sense of the stock-market plunge by focusing on President Trump's tariff yo-yo was left scratching their head at the start of this week. Shares in Tesla, run by Trump's chainsawer-in-chief Elon Musk, plummeted 15% on Monday to take them back below where they were before the election. Yet shares in General Motors and Ford, both much more exposed to tariffs on steel, Canada and Mexico than is Tesla, actually rose, bucking the wider selloff.

Tariffs were the wrong place to look for an explanation. Look deeper into the trading dynamics, and a picture forms of the broader market forces that sent stocks into correction territory this week.

The odd Tesla/Ford moves were more likely driven by what Wall Street types call capitulation. That's when traders have thrown in the towel and are closing out bets they had been holding on to in the hope of a turnaround.

Blame the army of individual day traders who obsessively follow Tesla (GM and Ford are both regarded with scorn by this crowd). These speculators finally gave up as Tesla lost all its postelection gains.

The irony for those who abandoned Tesla is that the stock then leapt on Tuesday and Wednesday (and Ford fell, while GM went sideways), before resuming its slide on Thursday. Trump peddling Teslas in front of the White House provided a justification for some to try to buy the dip. Also at play: another technical move driven by hedge funds.

Tesla was the single biggest short position of hedge funds at the end of January, the latest data available, according to Goldman Sachs. Hedgies' bet on Tesla's share price falling had been extremely painful when the stock rocketed higher after the election. The drop back made them some profits (or perhaps merely reduced their losses). That made it easier to buy back the stock to close the trade.

All this matters when trying to decide if the market is done with its correction. Stocks tend to overshoot reality both on the way up and on the way down, as investors get overexcited or depressed. After the election they overshot upward wildly, far beyond what was justified. If they overshoot down, it will be time to buy.

It doesn't quite feel like it's time to buy just yet. But here are three tests to help you decide:
Sentiment has already turned sour among private investors. Bears outnumber bulls in the weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors, and financial newsletters are more negative than positive about the outlook for stocks, according to the Investors Intelligence survey. Sentiment is a contrarian indicator, and when it's very negative it can be a good time to buy, as it becomes hard to get even more depressed. If the cloud of negativity lifts, it would help stocks popular with individuals, such as Tesla.

Among institutional investors, however, there's not enough sign of panic to make me want to go back in. Hedging in the options market has picked up, a sign of worry. But levels aren't even as high as when the Japan carry trade unwound suddenly last summer. I like to buy when fear drives stocks too low, but this is not that moment.

Leverage adds to the overshoots, as hedge funds and day traders borrow to buy stock, or have to sell to pay back their borrowing. At major market lows, leveraged traders are forced to close trades to repay debt. This accelerates the drop -- and helps find the bottom.

Monday gave a taste of the chaotic trading that results from the unwinding of leveraged trades, but hedge funds have barely started to cut their debt, according to the prime brokerage arm of Goldman, which lends to them. The small fall in leverage alone isn't enough to make me think that a rebound in stocks popular with hedge funds, such as Big Tech, is imminent.

Overshooting fundamentals is another sign we've hit a major low. David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, compares economically sensitive cyclical stocks with defensive stocks to try to work out what economic growth rate is priced into markets. He concluded this week that, after the bank lowered its forecast growth, stocks aren't pricing in a significant slowdown.

Goldman has plenty of company in cutting economic forecasts as weak data prompts a growth scare that has rippled through stocks. But economic forecasts are guesstimates, not science, and whether there's been an overshoot depends on what you think will happen to growth under Trump.

Investors who think the concern is overdone should think cyclical stocks, such as Ford and GM, are a bargain. The increasingly vocal group predicting recession will prefer defensives, or to get out of stocks entirely.

How to decide? The uncertainty created by Trump has clearly affected some household and CEO spending plans, but I'm unsure if the caution is widespread enough to tip the economy over the edge. This is hard to call, because it's impossible to know either what Trump will do next or how much the uncertainty itself will slow the economy.

Last week I wrote that I was paralyzed by all the uncertainty. The signs of at least some capitulation this week make me think a rebound is closer, but there isn't -- yet -- enough panic to trigger my contrarian buy-when-I'm-scared impulse.

TechCrunch : Google is replacing Google Assistant with Gemini(Well ahead of Appl

Google is replacing Google Assistant with Gemini

Google will replace Google Assistant on Android phones with Gemini later this year, the company announced on Friday.

Google said in a blog post that it’ll upgrade more users from Google Assistant to Gemini “over the coming months.” Later this year, Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile devices or available from app stores.

“Additionally, we’ll be upgrading tablets, cars and devices that connect to your phone, such as headphones and watches, to Gemini,” the company added. “We’re also bringing a new experience, powered by Gemini, to home devices like speakers, displays and TVs.”

Google said it’ll share more details with users in the next few months, and that, until then, Assistant will continue to operate on the aforementioned devices.

Google notes it has worked to improve the Gemini user experience ahead of the Assistant wind-down, especially for users relying on various Assistant functions. For instance, Google has added several highly requested features to Gemini on Android devices, such as the ability to play music, support for timers, and an option to take actions directly from a user’s lock screen.

The move to drop Assistant in favor of Gemini isn’t surprising, especially considering Google launched its Pixel 9 smartphone line with Gemini as the default virtual assistant. Google notes that Gemini has more advanced capabilities than Assistant (in theory, at least), and provides new ways of getting help and info on topics via tools like Gemini Live and Deep Research.

Barron's : Trump Turns His Back on the Markets. It Could Break MAGA.

Trump Turns His Back on the Markets. It Could Break MAGA.
The president has tried to acknowledge the stock market’s fall without backing off from the policies that triggered it. He’s playing

President Donald Trump and his team are sending a message: Hang in there through the economic turmoil, and better days will come.

A little sacrifice for the greater good may not be such a bad thing. Trump and his advisers have sketched out an economic vision that could help provide better economic security for the U.S. middle class and lessen the weight of government on the economy. Isn’t that worth a little stock market turmoil, especially when stock indexes remain near all-time highs?

Yes, but only if we get the gain to go with the pain. Trump’s erratic rollout of his tariff policy and his team’s haphazard approach to slashing government have prompted a market selloff and could lead to a recession. That could blow up the bigger political project before it really gets under way. And failure to complete the economic mission could leave Americans worse off.

Trump’s supporters have aligned around a loose set of goals. They include cutting the federal debt to free up capital for more-productive uses; modernizing and shrinking the federal government so that the private sector, rather than public spending, drives growth; and realigning trade relationships to revive U.S. manufacturing and re-empower workers.

And as Trump said both before and after his Nov. 5 win, all of that was meant to play out against a booming stock market, instead of the “Kamala crash” he predicted if the former vice president had won the presidency.

Trump’s imposition of tariffs has sown uncertainty and economic worry. The market’s fall in the past three weeks has erased the Trump bump that started when traders and investors began betting on a Trump victory. As of Thursday’s close, the S&P 500 index fell 10.1% from its most recent peak on Feb. 19 through March 13, putting it in a correction. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 14.2% from its Dec. 16 record of 20,174.

Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China could raise core personal- consumption-expenditure inflation by one percentage point and cut growth by a half to one percentage point, J.P. Morgan estimates. Additional tariffs imposed on March 12 on steel and aluminum will add more costs to the economy, as will plans to impose “reciprocal tariffs” on April 2. Those would effectively open negotiations with every other county in the world, making outcomes unpredictable.

Tariffs will raise revenue, but only inefficiently. The U.S. would need to impose 50% tariffs on all imports to raise just 40% of what current income taxes bring in, estimates the Peterson Institute, an economy-focused think tank.

Trump and his advisers have attempted to acknowledge the falling stock market without committing to back off from the policies that triggered it. “Markets are going to go up and they’re going to go down. We have to rebuild our country,” Trump said on March 11.

He has spoken of a “transition” period, implying that the turmoil won’t be long-lasting.

Trump’s White House spokespeople say the administration draws a distinction between a weakening of “animal spirits” in the markets and longer-term corporate health. The unemployment rate remains at a low 4.1%.

And yet, there are troubling signs. The NFIB Uncertainty Index, a measure of small-business sentiment, rose to its second-highest level ever in February. A survey of CEOs by the publication Chief Executive found a sharp uptick in corporate concerns. The share of CEOs who expect their revenue to grow fell 30 percentage points from January.

Trump’s own numbers look tough, too. A CNN/SRSS poll released on March 12 found that 52% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump, versus 42% in favor. The Department of Government Efficiency’s Elon Musk comes across even worse, with 53% unfavorable versus 35% favorable.

“The problem is less about messaging and more about the policy,” writes Dan Clifton of research firm Strategas Securities in a note to clients. Trump’s tariff plans dwarf the measures from his first presidency. His Canada and Mexico tariffs are the equivalent of a 10-point rise in the corporate tax rate, Clifton says.

Trump had mused about lowering the corporate rate during the campaign, but Republican majorities in Congress have slim margins and are having trouble agreeing on a way forward on fiscal matters.

House and Senate Republicans gave up in early March on a monthslong effort to negotiate a new budget, and opted instead to simply extend the current one. Their plan includes a few spending changes but doesn’t attempt to zero out funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Education Department, despite the chain saw that Musk has taken to their workforces, with Trump’s backing.

If there was truly an upswell of support behind DOGE’s cuts, members of Congress would be quick to take credit for them. Instead, many are facing down angry constituents at town hall meetings.

Despite all the noise over DOGE, its cuts don’t appear to have made a dent in the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office report for February found that at $308 billion, the monthly deficit was $11 billion higher than at the same time last year. The federal government is again headed for an annual budget deficit near 7% of gross domestic product.

DOGE’s cuts may also be difficult to make permanent. A federal judge in California on Thursday ordered six federal agencies to reinstate probationary workers who had been fired in recent weeks.

White House advisers such as National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett profess not to be worried about bumps in the policy process. “For sure there is some uncertainty over exactly how the trade policy will work itself out, but the tax policy is almost sure to work the way people are describing it in the House and Senate bills,” Hassett said on CNBC, on March 10.

“The uncertainty is actually creating jobs,” Hassett said.

Asked to explain Hassett’s comments, a White House official says the auto industry was driving new manufacturing jobs. “We’ve seen a consistent trend of auto makers reshoring or expanding production in the U.S. in the aftermath of President Trump’s election, often explicitly mentioning his policies as the impetus for doing so,” the official says.

Relocating the auto industry in the U.S. could cost $150 billion, Barron’s has estimated.

Meanwhile, tax reform is far from certain. Trump’s team talks of tax cuts, but merely maintaining current tax levels will be a challenge. A full extension of expiring portions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cost some $4.6 trillion. Trump has also promised to slash taxes on Social Security income, workers’ tips, overtime, and more. House Republicans’ current plans would add more than $2 trillion to the deficit and don’t detail specific tax changes.

Democrats oppose those tax plans and have declined to support Republicans’ short-term spending plans. A government shutdown is possible.

An early sign of Trump’s political strength will come in April, when Florida will hold elections to fill two House seats that became empty since Trump’s victory. Those would normally be safe GOP seats, but Clifton notes that Republicans nearly lost two special elections for nominally safe seats in similar circumstances after Trump’s 2016 win.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has defended Trump’s tariffs as in service of a greater good. “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” he said on March 6, making the point that Americans also want economic security and the chance for upward mobility.

But “trying to achieve this by focusing on manufacturing is a bad bet,” writes Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economic adviser to President George W. Bush and president of the American Action Forum, a conservative advocacy group.

Manufacturing jobs have fallen from more than a third of the private workforce in the 1950s to less than 10% more recently. That can’t be blamed entirely on China’s predations. The decline of manufacturing “cannot be offset by a simplistic reliance on tariffs,” Holtz-Eakin writes.

Steel tariffs, in force as of March 12, pit the many against the few. The steel industry employs just 83,600 people nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Standards. But many, if not all, of the 16.3 million cars sold in the U.S. in 2024 had steel in them.

Trying to manage the fallout from a web of policies that affect the entire global economy won’t be easy. It would require a consistency and clarity of purpose that seems to elude the president.

Decent market returns are at the heart of the economic bargain many voters made with Trump, recalling his first-term boom. Trump has put stocks at the center of his appeal, despite the minimal impact that presidents usually have on them. Stock investors have done exceptionally well recently and may forgive some ups and downs.

But if a president who claimed that the “stock market’s continued success is contingent on MAGA winning the next election” continues to turn his back on it, his overall appeal is likely to fade. And if continued market losses come amid escalating trade wars and rising deficits, then a midterm wipeout could be just the beginning of Republicans’ problems.

Trump has given his supporters the sense that they are finally in it together in a struggle against a government that seemed indifferent to their challenges. Policies that undermine that unity risk undoing the entire MAGA movement.

Barron's : Uber Will Get a Robo-Taxi Boost. Why It’s Time to Buy the Stock.

Uber Will Get a Robo-Taxi Boost. Why It’s Time to Buy the Stock.
Autonomous-driving fears have kept a lid on the shares, but they are likely overblown.

Uber Technologies’ stock is at a crossroads. Investors should take it.

Shares of the ride-sharing company have been stuck in neutral since October, when Tesla announced that production of its first robo-taxi would begin in 2026. That sparked fears that Uber, already weighed down by concerns about Waymo’s autonomous-vehicle business, would eventually get pushed out of the market. A 31% tumble in its shares was followed by a bounce, but a combination of disappointing guidance and concerns about what President Donald Trump’s tariffs could do to the economy left them going nowhere fast.

The ride-sharing issues are overblown. Uber should be seen as a partner, not a victim, of autonomous vehicles. The company already works with Waymo, a unit of Alphabet, in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, and could join up with it in other cities as well. What’s more, Uber’s app is on more than 171 million phones, and its businesses, which also include food delivery and advertising, are well diversified beyond providing cars to passengers. With the stock’s valuation cut in half over the past year, now looks like the time to buy.

“You have this possibility that the [autonomous] debate starts to swing in their favor,” says Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt.

Make no mistake—autonomous is the future of ride sharing. The global self-driving taxi market, which is around $1 billion now, could grow to more than $2 trillion over the next decade, according to Evercore. The big risk to Uber is that companies like Tesla and Waymo go it alone, dramatically reducing Uber’s ride-hailing market share. Even if Waymo decides to partner up on ride sharing, Uber has to share a cut with Waymo, so the profit margins on these trips would be lower.

There’s a real possibility, though, that Waymo and others will put more cars on the road, making ride sharing more accessible and widespread, even if they don’t all use Uber. But if Uber were able to increase the number of total rides, its earnings would still get a boost, even if the driverless business is less profitable. And ultimately, it should be seen as a tailwind, not a headwind, Devitt says.

“The [ride-share] market expands because there’s more and more use cases,” he explains. “That leads to more density of vehicles. That is super-bullish for Uber long-term.”

Under this scenario, Uber’s growth rate would go from fast to faster. The company, which saw over half of its total $44 billion in 2024 revenue from rides and about a third from Uber Eats food delivery, grew the top line 20% during the fourth quarter of 2024. Management’s first-quarter guidance called for 19% first-quarter gross bookings growth at the midpoint of the range, with the slight decrease driven entirely by a stronger U.S. dollar. Uber has the potential to grow sales well above 20% in the years ahead.

Uber also wants to be more than a ride-sharing and food-delivery platform. It has visions of becoming a “super app”—a one-stop shop for rides, food, and booking travel. That’s on the back burner at the moment, as far as the market is concerned, but it’s a goal that could be reached even if Uber doesn’t buy Expedia Group, as the Financial Times reported it had been considering in October. Getting a small piece of the travel market would expand Uber’s reach and make selling ads, which appear on the app, easier.

Advertising isn’t a large part of Uber’s total revenue today, but the opportunity is huge. Ad revenue had an annualized run rate in the low-single-digit billions in the fourth quarter, but the digital market is hundreds of billions annually. Taking a little bit of market share would have a material impact on Uber’s revenue. When it comes to the conversation on Wall Street, nobody is talking about “their little gem of an advertising business and an audience waiting to be delivered ads,” says Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group, which owns the stock. “The super app value is in advertising.”

In the near term, Uber is a free-cash-flow machine. If revenue grows by 15% in 2025 and operating expenses don’t grow faster than the 13% analysts predict, free cash flow could grow 23% to $8.5 billion this year, and it should continue to grow in the years ahead. The extra cash could be used to buy back stock, something that would boost earnings as well.

While the company is expected to produce adjusted earnings of $3.06 a share in 2025, down from 2024’s tax-boosted $4.56, earnings should grow 33% to $4.06 in 2026. That growth makes the stock look attractive at 20.4 times expected 2025 free cash flow per share, a mere 4.5 points above the S&P 500’s 15.9 times after trading at a 12-point premium over the past three years.

“Uber’s free cash flow multiple could increase to the mid-20s,” writes BofA Securities analyst Justin Post, who has a Buy rating and a $95 price target on the stock, up 34% from Tuesday’s close of $70.65.

Uber stock needs to dodge some potholes. A recession would force consumers to go to the store instead of having groceries delivered. A slowdown could also ding its ride-sharing business, though it’s possible that more people would use the latter because it’s cheaper than owning a car. A bear market would hurt, too, given that the stock is typically more volatile than the broader market. But a drop, though painful, would create “near-term opportunities and (for longer-duration investors) attractive entry points for a multiyear winner,” writes Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak.

Uber investors will get to their destination, even if the road gets a little bumpy.

Barron's : The Mag 7 Stocks Have Gotten Crushed. Buy These 4 Now.

The Mag 7 Stocks Have Gotten Crushed. Buy These 4 Now.
Amazon.com may be the best bet among the Magnificent Seven. These other three stocks look attractive, too.

They’ve gone from the Mag Seven to the Lag Seven.

We’re talking about Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon.com, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Tesla, which contributed more than half of the S&P 500’s gain of 23% in 2024 as they rose an average of 60%. With the stocks down an average of 15% so far this year, they now account for about 95% of the index’s decline of 6% in 2025.

But don’t write off the market’s former leaders just yet. While their declines conjure up bad memories of the tech bubble’s former giants— Cisco Systems, WorldCom, and AOL among them—the Magnificent Seven aren’t destined to fail or fade into insignificance. They remain too dominant, accounting for a third of the current market value of the S&P 500, and too reasonably priced, with six of the seven trading for 18 to 30 times projected 2025 earnings. (Tesla, at 85 times, is the notable exception.)

The Mag Seven now “trade at their lowest valuation premium relative to the rest of the S&P 500 since 2017,” according to Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin, “despite consensus earnings expectations that the group will collectively continue to grow [earnings per share] at a faster rate than the S&P 493.”

That spectacular earnings growth, not bubbly sentiment, is what has driven the group’s outperformance over the past seven years, Kostin adds. Nvidia’s earnings are up tenfold since 2018, while Amazon’s have increased fivefold and Alphabet’s have risen fourfold. Rather than any major fundamental issues, the declines are a result in part of selling by hot-money hedge funds and other institutional investors who had piled into the stocks in the past two years, he writes.

There are risks. All seven are exposed to a slowing economy and the impact of a trade war, which could ding profits in 2025. Size also becomes an impediment to growth, though the companies serve large addressable markets. Investors also worry that most are spending more than ever on artificial intelligence—and therefore producing less free cash flow.

Investors can play the entire group with the Roundhill Magnificent Seven exchange-traded fund (ticker: MAGS), which equal-weights the stocks and trades for around $47. But there may be something to be said for being choosy. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia are the most attractive, even if they might not appeal to classic value investors. Apple and Microsoft are less tempting, while Tesla is a special case, deserving of its own treatment.

Amazon might be the best of the bunch. The stock has slumped nearly 20% from its February record high to around $194, and is now trading for 25 times Evercore ISI internet analyst Mark Mahaney’s 2026 earnings estimate—a figure based on generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, that includes the stock-based compensation that many other tech companies still exclude from their preferred earnings calculations. And Amazon is trading at its lowest price/earnings multiple ever, he notes.

Mahaney likes the setup for Amazon. It recently launched an enhanced version of its digital assistant Alexa, and a satellite internet service similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink called Project Kuiper is due by the end of the year. The company is also investing heavily in—and reaping large cost savings from—automation as it adds robots to its fulfillment centers.

Amazon Web Services is the leading cloud-computing provider; it now has over $100 billion of annual revenue and is probably worth at least $1 trillion. Amazon’s margins are expanding in its North American retail business, which could pass Walmart in sales this year. It has an underappreciated, high-margin advertising business that now boasts $70 billion in annualized revenue.

Not everything is perfect. Its capital spending could top $100 billion this year, and growing competition from Walmart both in stores and online poses a challenge. Higher tariffs could depress consumer spending and Amazon’s sales.

Those risks look reflected in Amazon’s stock. It trades at a discount to both Walmart, which fetches 32 times 2025 earnings, and Costco Wholesale, which goes for 50 times, even though Amazon has higher projected profit growth than both. The company has over $100 billion in cash—against about $50 billion in debt—and could begin paying a dividend and repurchasing stock in the next year. Mahaney calls the Outperform-rated stock one of his top picks. His price target is $270, up 39% from Thursday’s close.

If Amazon investors have concerns, Alphabet’s have worries. The stock, now trading around $163, has a valuation of 18 times this year’s earnings, the lowest among the Mag Seven and the only member with a below-market multiple.

Mahaney ticks off the major investor issues: potential disruption to its search business from AI-driven rivals, the ongoing government antitrust effort, and a lack of spending discipline as the company’s capital expenditures are set to rise 40% this year to $75 billion. “There is a lot of fear there,” he says.

Maybe too much fear. On search, Mahaney says Google is holding its own, with his firm’s recent surveys showing that the search engine still commands a nearly 80% share and is particularly strong in commercial search, which matters for advertising. On antitrust, the Trump administration could show more restraint than Biden’s regulatory team.

Alphabet also has kept a better handle on costs than investors appreciate. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman recently noted that Alphabet’s operating margins rose four percentage points in 2024 and that the company’s new chief financial officer, Anat Ashkenazi, “is committed to accelerating efficiency initiatives.”

Investors also get a valuable tech conglomerate beyond search. Alphabet’s businesses include YouTube; a cloud-computing business that does $50 billion in sales annually; the Android mobile operating system; and Waymo, one of two leaders in autonomous driving along with Tesla.

Alphabet has two classes of public stock outstanding—voting (GOOGL) and nonvoting (GOOG). Consider the voting stock, which now trades at a 1% discount its nonvoting shares.

Meta might have the fewest warts among the Mag Seven. Over the past three years, Mark Zuckerberg has gone from being a near-pariah to one of the most indispensable tech CEOs, having maneuvered Meta to the forefront of AI, streamlined expenses, and significantly boosted earnings, while overseeing a tripling in the stock price.

The stock had a 20-day win streak that began in late January before joining the Big Tech slump. Shares have dropped nearly 20% from a record $750 to around $600, and now trade for about 23 times projected 2025 earnings of $25 a share.

Still, Meta is the only Mag Seven stock in the black this year and arguably has the best near-term financial outlook, as the company uses AI to enhance the customer experience and better target advertising.

Mahaney sees a lot to like, including 40% operating margins against 32% for Alphabet. Then there are monetization opportunities in relatively untapped Meta products like WhatsApp, Threads, and Facebook Marketplace.

Nit-pickers might point to the fact that Meta is planning on spending $65 billion this year, up 75% from 2024, while revenue growth could slow to 10% in 2025 from 18% last year. In the fourth quarter, the company elected not to buy back stock for the first time in about eight years—a sign Zuckerberg didn’t think the shares were cheap following its run-up.

Spending concerns could be alleviated if Zuckerberg decides to cut Meta’s Reality Labs, the company’s metaverse business, which lost almost $18 billion, or about $6 a share, last year. The stock no longer looks overvalued after its drop. Mahaney has an Outperform rating and $725 price target on the shares, up 23% from a recent $590.

Perhaps no stock’s fall from grace has been more surprising than Nvidia’s. The AI chip maker has slumped to $115 from a high of $150, a 23% decline, and now trades for about 25 times 2025 earnings. Growth concerns, as well as tariffs and regulatory risks, have caused the drop, which Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon recently called “a little stunning, especially at the start of a product cycle,” a reference to Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips.

Investors should leave those worries behind. Barron’s tech columnist and Nvidia expert Tae Kim recently wrote that Nvidia “has strong quarters ahead, given the successful launch of Blackwell and the growing demand for AI driven by innovations such as agents, reasoning capabilities, and multimodal models that can process images, videos, and audio.”

Nvidia’s P/E ratio is also near a 10-year low. “[Investors] have historically done well to buy the stock at 25x or lower,” Rasgon writes. “[Worries] that the AI trade is ‘over’ seem a little premature to us.” He has an Outperform rating and $185 price target on the stock, up 60% from Thursday’s close.

Apple has been hit hard lately, falling about 10% in the past week, but even after the drop, it may be one of the least attractive stocks in the group.

While the company has an enviable ecosystem that fuels a valuable and growing services business with over $100 billion in sales, its revenue growth remains sluggish: It is projected to grow sales at less than 5% for the current fiscal year ending in September. And the stock, at around $210 and trading for almost 30 times estimated earnings, doesn’t look cheap.

Apple has had unexpected delays rolling out an enhanced version of Siri, its digital assistant, giving iPhone users one less reason to upgrade their phones this year and highlighting what critics have called a lack of innovation at the tech giant.

Apple also has a China problem. MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett notes that revenue fell 11% during the latest quarter in its second-largest market. Its vaunted ecosystem is no match for Tencent Holdings’ dominant WeChat, which combines online communications, social media, and payments. Without China, there likely won’t be a long-awaited iPhone supercycle, Moffett says. He has a Sell rating and $184 price target on the stock, down 12% from a recent $210.

Microsoft, down 8.8% over the past 12 months, has been the worst performer among the seven stocks over the past year. Investors reacted negatively to decelerating fourth-quarter growth in its Azure cloud business outside of AI. While Microsoft has better growth prospects than Apple—earnings are projected to rise 11% in the current fiscal year ending in June and 14% the following year—the stock looks fully priced at 29 times current-year earnings.

WSJ : How Wall Street, Business Got Trump Wrong

How to Tell If the Stock-Market Selloff Has Hit Bottom

It doesn't quite feel like it's time to buy just yet. But here are three tests to help you decide.

Anyone trying to make sense of the stock-market plunge by focusing on President Trump's tariff yo-yo was left scratching their head at the start of this week. Shares in Tesla, run by Trump's chainsawer-in-chief Elon Musk, plummeted 15% on Monday to take them back below where they were before the election. Yet shares in General Motors and Ford, both much more exposed to tariffs on steel, Canada and Mexico than is Tesla, actually rose, bucking the wider selloff.

Tariffs were the wrong place to look for an explanation. Look deeper into the trading dynamics, and a picture forms of the broader market forces that sent stocks into correction territory this week.

The odd Tesla/Ford moves were more likely driven by what Wall Street types call capitulation. That's when traders have thrown in the towel and are closing out bets they had been holding on to in the hope of a turnaround.

Blame the army of individual day traders who obsessively follow Tesla (GM and Ford are both regarded with scorn by this crowd). These speculators finally gave up as Tesla lost all its postelection gains.

The irony for those who abandoned Tesla is that the stock then leapt on Tuesday and Wednesday (and Ford fell, while GM went sideways), before resuming its slide on Thursday. Trump peddling Teslas in front of the White House provided a justification for some to try to buy the dip. Also at play: another technical move driven by hedge funds.

Tesla was the single biggest short position of hedge funds at the end of January, the latest data available, according to Goldman Sachs. Hedgies' bet on Tesla's share price falling had been extremely painful when the stock rocketed higher after the election. The drop back made them some profits (or perhaps merely reduced their losses). That made it easier to buy back the stock to close the trade.

All this matters when trying to decide if the market is done with its correction. Stocks tend to overshoot reality both on the way up and on the way down, as investors get overexcited or depressed. After the election they overshot upward wildly, far beyond what was justified. If they overshoot down, it will be time to buy.

It doesn't quite feel like it's time to buy just yet. But here are three tests to help you decide:
Sentiment has already turned sour among private investors. Bears outnumber bulls in the weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors, and financial newsletters are more negative than positive about the outlook for stocks, according to the Investors Intelligence survey. Sentiment is a contrarian indicator, and when it's very negative it can be a good time to buy, as it becomes hard to get even more depressed. If the cloud of negativity lifts, it would help stocks popular with individuals, such as Tesla.

Among institutional investors, however, there's not enough sign of panic to make me want to go back in. Hedging in the options market has picked up, a sign of worry. But levels aren't even as high as when the Japan carry trade unwound suddenly last summer. I like to buy when fear drives stocks too low, but this is not that moment.

Leverage adds to the overshoots, as hedge funds and day traders borrow to buy stock, or have to sell to pay back their borrowing. At major market lows, leveraged traders are forced to close trades to repay debt. This accelerates the drop -- and helps find the bottom.

Monday gave a taste of the chaotic trading that results from the unwinding of leveraged trades, but hedge funds have barely started to cut their debt, according to the prime brokerage arm of Goldman, which lends to them. The small fall in leverage alone isn't enough to make me think that a rebound in stocks popular with hedge funds, such as Big Tech, is imminent.

Overshooting fundamentals is another sign we've hit a major low. David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, compares economically sensitive cyclical stocks with defensive stocks to try to work out what economic growth rate is priced into markets. He concluded this week that, after the bank lowered its forecast growth, stocks aren't pricing in a significant slowdown.

Goldman has plenty of company in cutting economic forecasts as weak data prompts a growth scare that has rippled through stocks. But economic forecasts are guesstimates, not science, and whether there's been an overshoot depends on what you think will happen to growth under Trump.

Investors who think the concern is overdone should think cyclical stocks, such as Ford and GM, are a bargain. The increasingly vocal group predicting recession will prefer defensives, or to get out of stocks entirely.

How to decide? The uncertainty created by Trump has clearly affected some household and CEO spending plans, but I'm unsure if the caution is widespread enough to tip the economy over the edge. This is hard to call, because it's impossible to know either what Trump will do next or how much the uncertainty itself will slow the economy.

Last week I wrote that I was paralyzed by all the uncertainty. The signs of at least some capitulation this week make me think a rebound is closer, but there isn't -- yet -- enough panic to trigger my contrarian buy-when-I'm-scared impulse.