The big short play amid the tariff war agenda is going on, even gaining momentum. We surely are not witnessing the crash of global equity markets' stout building, yet the highest short-term profit still comes from downright bearish bets on each and every Wall Street and European stock indicator. U.S. futures sank further, with the S&P 500 broad barometer losing another 3% in the pre-market trading this Monday after nearly touching its lower 4,800 support base during Asia trading hours. Moreover, in just the last three working days, about 15% of its value is wasted. Hong Kong shares faced steepest one-session decline since 1997, including a plunge of the benchmark Hang Seng index by 13.2%. The Hang Seng index is down 27% in a month, being very close to where it just began the year of 2025 before the bulls revived on DeepSeek cheaper AI startup news. China’s mainland CSI300 index of national blue is 7% lower, while the team of state-backed investors admitted it has built up holdings of stocks in order to defend stability in local markets. A group of leading Chinese automakers, including Li Auto, Nio and Xpeng, fell by 12.5% on average, feeling the effects of the de facto blockade of their supplies to U.S. consumers.

Is any company of a business segment still staying unperturbed by this terrible sell-off action in a deep sea of red? A completely quiet place is difficult to find at the moment. Yet, there are equities, which suffered little or even struggled to add in market price on the very start of the massacre, when tech flagships were already leading big losses. As a few examples, McDonald's, Coca-Cola as well as Kroger retailer that operates supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the U.S. even rose by 2% or more on the closing price of April 3, which was exactly the first working day after Trump's tough tariff announcement, and only later moderately lost some ground. As a result, McDonald's shares are now roughly at the levels they were last seen in mid-March or early February, when the fast-food chain had mostly recovered from the shock of E. coli in one of its menu items. A similar technical pattern is for Coca-Cola, which is still down 4% ahead of the opening bell for the regular trading today after losing 4.44% last Friday, but the soft drinks manufacturer is still traded within the range of February and March, and not near critical lows of a year ago like Amazon or Meta, which just lost double-digits twice over the last several weeks.

This behaviour in the economy segment consumption assets is more typical not when recession is actually waiting around the corner, but rather for situations of psychological uncertainty for most consumers of goods and services, so that households are trying to find a solution in purchasing cheaper food and everyday necessities at low prices, putting aside the rest of the money for a rainy day fund. To some extent, this reassures investing minds about the future prospects of the entire market, saying that the next stage of the overall rally is not completely cancelled, but postponed and can be expected a little later after buying will resume from lower levels. Major tech names are still among the worst losers on today's pre-market, as market crowds fear that their yesterday's darlings may be severely taxed out of revenge by the EU structures. Even the global AI chip leader Nvidia plunged another 6.5% to drop below $88 per share even before the start of the regular session on Wall Street.

The hyping Tesla EV-maker, which traded flat or slightly up in the first 24 hours after the tariffs were imposed, being the least dependent on imported foreign components and having a strong manufacturing base in the US, China and Germany at the same time, and therefore less exposed to cross-border levies, has fallen by 18% over the past two days, including 9% in today's pre-market. This happened mostly due to the overestimation of image risks for Tesla by some of its well-known bullish admirers. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, one of Tesla’s most prominent long-time bulls, commented on cutting aggressively his price target on the stock from $550 to $315, as he referred to "intensifying tariff pressures and a worsening global brand crisis" and described the current situation as a “double whammy” of economic "tariff Armageddon" and reputational damage that could "reshape Tesla’s trajectory". Wedbush analysts' estimate is that Tesla allegedly lost at least 10% of its future global customer base due to "self-inflicted brand issues", with the damage exceeding 20% among the EU customers' base. For us, this looks like a very aggravated number. Again, $315 is far from $550, but still about 50% higher than the current sub-$220 levels that Tesla is testing now, promising even more gains for buyers from deeper lows. Nevertheless, those comments clearly helped to contribute much to the negative momentum here and now.