STORY: Wall Street's major indexes edged higher on Monday, with the Dow and S&P 500 posting modest gains and the Nasdaq gaining roughly one-quarter of a percent.
President Trump ramped up trade tensions over the weekend, vowing to slap a 30% tariff on most imports from the European Union and Mexico starting August 1 – leaving the clock ticking for last-minute trade deals.
Despite the headlines, investor reaction was muted, having grown numb to Trump's barrage of tariff threats and last-minute U-turns.
In fact, more tough talk from Trump only creates more buying opportunities for stocks, said Tally Leger, chief market strategist at The Wealth Consulting Group.
“In terms of the approach, I think this is his strategy. We haven't changed our interpretation of the ‘more bark than bite' approach. If you think about it, there's way too many countries and counterparties and too little time. So I think Trump is really trying to just push or force the moment to a crisis, if you will. And as a firm, we don't let good crises go to waste, and we've been shopping the sales. I think that another way to frame that for investors is, instead of selling into the strength we'd be buying into any weakness that does manifest here in the weeks and months ahead.”
One place where Trump's tariff rhetoric moved markets was crude prices, with U.S. benchmark oil dropping more than 2% after Trump on Monday threatened levies on buyers of Russian exports.
That pushed the S&P 500 energy index down 1.2%, the biggest decliner among the 11 S&P sectors.
Among individual movers, shares of Warner Bros. Discovery gained more than 2%, after the studio's latest Superman caper had a strong opening weekend at the box office.
Crypto stocks ticked up after Bitcoin topped $120,000 for the first time, with shares of Coinbase and MicroStrategy both rising.
On the flip side, shares of Waters Corp dropped nearly 14% after the lab equipment maker agreed to merge with rival Becton, Dickinson and Company's Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions unit in a $17.5 billion deal.
Investors now turn their attention to a raft economic data due out this week, as well as the start to second-quarter earnings season.
