IXIC: Nasdaq Futures Pop 2% as Trump Says Tech from China Is Subject to 20% Tariff. For Now.

“Better than 145%,” investors, probably as they snapped up shares of battered tech companies ahead of the opening bell.

👊 Nasdaq Futures Rise 2%

• Futures contracts tied to the Nasdaq Composite index IXIC were trading higher by as much as 2% in pre-market Monday with gutsy investors snapping up technology names that survived a wild week. Futures on the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones were also up by 1.2% and 0.6%, respectively.
• It’s looking like another volatile cash session after the tariff shockwave is about to ripple across the US equity market. As is tradition, the biggest action is likely to be in the tech sector — the corner that one day looks like a bargain but then turns into a dumpster fire.

🔄 Tech to Still Get Tariffs

• The latest move was inspired by the man himself — Donald Trump took to his platform Truth Social to respond to weekend news, which said that technology and electronics imported from China will be exempt from the crushing 145% tariff rate.
• “There was no Tariff ‘exception’,” Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. “These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’” He added that the US “will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China.”

👀 What About Planning Capex?

• And just when you thought that Apple AAPL and other tech titans who import their products from China are off the hook this happened. More confusion came from Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick who said on Sunday that tariff exemptions on devices like computers and smartphones are temporary and new duties will come in “a month or two.”
• "All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels — we need to have these things made in America.”
• So much for planning the quarterly capital expenditures.