Are we having fun yet?

No. No, we are not.

Stocks are getting hammered after President Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs were larger and broader than economists anticipated. Retailers and tech are leading the way lower early, which has been the case since this sell-off started to pick up steam in late January.

The immediate impact will hammer the margins of companies importing and/or manufacturing which, in the market consumer world is almost anything you can think of, to one degree or another. The declines in the pre-market tends to reflect worse-case back of the envelope calculations for how hard companies will be hit based on the announced tariffs which, it should be noted repeatedly, are "immediate", "permanent" and "open to negotiation". Three words not typically used to describe the same action, yet here we are.

Take Nike. Please. Nike produces 50% of its shoes in Vietnam, 18% in China and 27% in Indonesia. 

Going into the news conference Nike had probably been planning to shift some production around to whichever countries got the best terms. If so, this was a very bad moment in Beaverton:

Is it worth it for Nike to move...

I was busily preparing for the post-close rantings of a polarizing lunatic (by which I mean the RH earnings report and conference call) when it came across the wire that Amazon could be in the running to buy TikTok.

Amazon spiked on the news, as well it should have. As mentioned almost too often, Amazon is exceptional at deploying capital. Amazon convinced America to put what amounts to spyware-capable microphones in bad speakers, call it Alexa and sell about a billion of them. Amazon started selling Prime memberships in exchange for 2 day delivery on select items. Now Prime generates $50b in membership sales per year.

The company started as a bookstore. 

If Amazon buys TikTok and hotlinks weirdly specific targeted advertising to America's preferred hub for impulse shopping chains like Target might as well stop trying to build out online retail and focus on going viral. I'm only half kidding. 

Merging social media and retail seamlessly has been a dream since the first pop-up ad. In September of 2020 Walmart and Oracle announced a "Tentative" deal to...

Every month, I do a monthly Town Hall for my premium members at Macke's Retail Roundup+. This is meant to be a chance for my members to interact directly with me. I'll go over my portfolio, talk about my recent trades, and answer your questions. 

Watch the video and talk to me in chat below.

This post explains what members of my Retail Roundup+ get with their membership.