ETF Tracker Newsletter For May 30, 2025
ETF Tracker StatSheet
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STOCKS REBOUND IN MAY, BUT TRADE TENSIONS AND FISCAL FEARS LINGER
- Moving the market
Stocks stumbled out of the gate today after President Trump accused China of breaking its initial trade deal—rekindling fears of a renewed trade war. That headline alone was enough to rattle traders early on.
Adding fuel to the fire was the legal uncertainty surrounding the administration’s aggressive tariff plans.
A court ruling on Wednesday night temporarily blocked most of the tariffs, only for an appeals court to step in Thursday afternoon and keep them alive—at least for now. The back-and-forth has made it tough to see how or when a lasting U.S.-China trade agreement might happen.
On the bright side, the Fed’s go-to inflation gauge—the PCE—dropped to a four-year low. That could make it harder for Fed Chair Powell to justify holding off on more rate cuts.
Despite today’s turbulence, May turned out to be a strong month for equities. The S&P 500 bounced back with a +6.2% gain, clawing its way into positive territory for the year—barely—at +0.80%. Still, that’s a far cry from gold’s impressive +25% YTD surge.
Elsewhere, bond yields dipped for the week but rose for the month. The dollar slid for the fifth month in a row, while gold notched a modest fourth straight monthly gain.
Bitcoin stole the spotlight again, jumping 11% in May and hitting a new all-time high, thanks in part to strong inflows into BTC ETFs.
As ZeroHedge noted, even though trade policy uncertainty has eased a bit, concerns about U.S. fiscal stability and default risk are still hanging over the market.
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