Wall Street’s two-day pop already looks like a sugar rush. Early futures slid 0.7 % after the S&P Global flash PMI dipped to 51.2, its lowest print since January, hinting that the post-holiday manufacturing sprint may be stalling. The bigger mood killer: an overnight White House leak that a partial rollback of the 145 % China tariff was “on the table”—then off the table three hours later. Treasury chief Scott Bessent finally admitted the mega-tariff is “politically unsustainable,” but offered zero timeline, leaving importers frozen.
Add in a euro flirting with a 3½-year high, crude drifting toward $92, and traders suddenly prefer cashmere-lined mattresses to equities. One bright spot: chipmaker ON Semi pre-announced upbeat AI-server orders, but even that couldn’t keep the Nasdaq future above water. In trader slang, yesterday’s bounce looks less like a dead-cat and more like a feather pillow: pleasant on impact, deflates fast.
