Retailers to increase prices from Trump's tariffs, pass on costs to shoppers
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Globe and Mail
3 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Citizens JMP Sticks to Its Buy Rating for Amazon (AMZN)
In a report released today, Andrew Boone from Citizens JMP reiterated a Buy rating on Amazon, with a price target of $285.00. The company's shares closed yesterday at $223.88. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. According to TipRanks, Boone is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 10.7% and a 55.02% success rate. Boone covers the Communication Services sector, focusing on stocks such as Meta Platforms, DoorDash, and Alphabet Class A. Currently, the analyst consensus on Amazon is a Strong Buy with an average price target of $251.44, representing a 12.31% upside. In a report released yesterday, Bernstein also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a $235.00 price target. AMZN market cap is currently $2369.5B and has a P/E ratio of 36.51.
CTV News
4 hours ago
- CTV News
Trump's tariff threat pushes Lula's popularity and worsens legal troubles for Brazil's ex-leader
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gestures upon arriving at an event on the economy at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) SAO PAULO — U.S. President Donald Trump may have thought that pressuring Brazil with higher tariffs would help his ally, the country's former President Jair Bolsonaro, but the move apparently backfired. Last week, Trump sent a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva threatening a 50 per cent import tax and directly linking the decision to Bolsonaro's trial, which he called a 'witch hunt.' 'This trial should end immediately!' Trump wrote Thursday evening in a second letter, this one addressed to Bolsonaro. He added that he had 'strongly voiced' his disapproval through his tariff policy. Rather than backing down, Brazil's Supreme Court escalated the case, worsening Bolsonaro's legal troubles. On Friday morning, federal police raided Bolsonaro's home and political office. The former president was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, banned from using social media, and hit with other restrictions. Meanwhile, President Lula — who was facing higher unpopularity, growing opposition in Congress and increasing risks to his likely reelection bid — seems to have gained politically from the situation. Now the 79-year-old leftist Lula, in office for the third non-consecutive term of his long political career, is seeing renewed acceptance, congressional support against Trump and pleas to run one last time to defend Brazil's sovereignty. Back in the game Lula has appeared more energized in public since Trump's announcement. At a national students assembly Thursday, he wore a blue cap reading 'Sovereign Brazil Unites Us' — a contrast to MAGA's red cap. 'A gringo will not give orders to this president,' he told the crowd, and called the tariff hike 'unacceptable blackmail.' The impact on Lula is not a first. Trump's actions targeting other countries have boosted ideological rivals in Canada and Australia instead of strengthening his allies at a local level. Private pollster Atlas said Tuesday that Lula's unpopularity had reversed course after his spat with Trump. Lula's job approval went from at 47.3 per cent in June to 49.7 per cent since the tariffs battle began. The poll of more than 2,800 people was conducted July 11-13, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The study also said 62.2 per cent of Brazilians think the higher tariffs are unjustified while 36.8 per cent agree with the measure. Even Bolsonaro's former vice president, Sen. Hamilton Mourão, criticized Trump's move as undue interference in Brazil's politics, though he said he agreed the trial against the far-right leader is biased against him. Social media analytics firm Palver analyzed 20,000 messages about Trump on WhatsApp, Brazil's most widely used communication platform, a day after Trump's announcement. Its analysis said right-wing users dominated viral content, but spontaneous conversations leaned left, mocking Bolsonaro as submissive and defending Brazil's sovereignty. 'Trump has put Lula back in the game,' said Thomas Traumann, an independent political consultant and former spokesman for the Brazilian presidency who only weeks ago argued that Lula had lost his front-runner status in the presidential race as he struggled to deliver on his promises on the economy. 'Trump handed it to Lula on a silver platter,' Traumann said. Business leaders who until recently sided with Bolsonaro are having to court Lula to negotiate with Trump. Agribusiness, Brazil's largest economic sector and a traditional right-wing stronghold, united to criticize the U.S. president's move. Industry groups were quick to denounce the tariffs as politically motivated and lacking any commercial justification. National outrage 'In general, with the major exception of a more radical conservative wing, (Trump's move) generated national outrage for violating Brazil's sovereignty,' lawmaker Arnaldo Jardim, a member of the congressional agricultural caucus, told The Associated Press. Jardim, who pushed for the approval of a reciprocity bill that could be used by Lula if there's no agreement until the Aug. 1 deadline, hardly sides with the president. 'Even among sectors that initially thought this could benefit Bolsonaro, many had to reconsider their positions,' he said. Top congressional leaders who recently helped nix a Lula decree to raise a transactions tax were moving toward a head-on collision with him. After Trump's announcement, they signed a joint statement agreeing with Lula's promise to use the reciprocity law against the U.S. In another change, Brazil's Congress decided to start moving on Lula's plan to give an income tax break to millions of poorer Brazilians. Many politicians said that such initiative was dead after Lula became the first president in three decades to have a decree annulled by lawmakers. Bolsonaro remains on trial At the Supreme Court, Bolsonaro is only getting deeper into trouble as his trial continues. Earlier this week, Brazil's chief prosecutor called for a guilty verdict, accusing the former president of leading an armed criminal organization, attempting to stage a coup and attempting violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, among other charges. The defense will next likely present its case in the coming weeks, after which the panel of Supreme Court justices in the trial will vote on whether to convict or acquit him. The former president also suffered more consequences — the court's latest restrictions on Bolsonaro, including the ankle monitor, are part of a second investigation against one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian lawmaker who currently lives in the United States and is known for his close ties to Trump. He has been under scrutiny for allegedly working with U.S. authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees criminal cases against Bolsonaro, said his and his son's actions attempted to pressure the Brazilian judiciary by involving the U.S. The court's decision cited both Trump's letter to Lula and several social media posts by the Bolsonaros in support of sanctions against Brazilian officials and speaking favorably about tariffs. 'A sovereign country like Brazil will always know how to defend its democracy and sovereignty,' de Moraes said. 'The judiciary will not allow any attempt to subject the functioning of the Supreme Court to the scrutiny of another state through hostile acts.' Jair Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia, the country's capital, that the ankle monitoring was a 'supreme humiliation.' 'I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy, but the precautionary measures are because of that,' the former president said. In a statement, Eduardo Bolsonaro accused de Moraes of trying to criminalize Trump and the U.S. government. 'Since he has no power over them, he decided to make my father a hostage,' the younger Bolsonaro said of the judge. Gabriela Sá Pessoa And Mauricio Savarese, The Associated Press
Globe and Mail
6 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Trump's tariffs haven't raised prices yet. That might be a bad sign
John Rapley is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. He is an author and academic whose books include Why Empires Fall and Twilight of the Money Gods. This week's inflation reports in both the United States and Canada were surprisingly benign, given we're in a trade war. In both countries, inflation ticked upwards, but just a bit: enough to keep central banks from cutting interest rates but not to ring the sort of alarm bells that the 'Liberation Day' tariff announcement set off. On the face of it, therefore, Donald Trump has been vindicated. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt crowed, 'The data proves that President Trump is stabilizing inflation and the Panicans continue to be wrong about tariffs raising prices.' To underscore this point, much was made of a release showing Japanese car prices falling, apparent evidence that Mr. Trump's prediction that foreigners would pay the tariffs was being borne out. But in fact, the data may be more troubling than the White House is letting on. The Japanese figures appear to have been a one-off, reflecting the large cushion Japanese automakers had accumulated: years of a weak yen having made their cars cheap in America, swelling their profits and thus allowing them to slash prices to hold market share. U.S. Federal Reserve's inflation fears start to be realized with June CPI increase But the broader data we're getting on import prices doesn't reveal any softening. On the contrary, a mild inflation continues. So on the whole, foreign exporters aren't eating the tariffs by lowering their prices. That means someone stateside is paying them, and they're paying a lot – US$64-billion in the second quarter alone, nearly US$50-billion more than the same time last year. There are two candidates: businesses and consumers. The big surge in tariff revenues came in May, which confirms what was already suspected – that importers had got ahead of tariffs by stockpiling goods early in the year. Those stocks apparently began to run out only in May, which would account for the take-off of revenue collections then. Given the time between a good's arrival in port and its appearance on store shelves, we would not expect major price increases until perhaps the late summer, which explains some of the softness in prices. In addition, we're getting anecdotal evidence that American companies are, for now, absorbing the hit from tariffs. Given the on-again-off-again character of Mr. Trump's trade war, it's still not clear if tariffs will be in place later this year. He may chicken out and suspend them again, as investors expect, or he may win the great trade deals he's trying to squeeze out of other countries, dropping his tariffs in response. Until more clarity emerges about the long-term status of tariffs, companies are choosing not to alienate their customers with price rises, and are hoping for better days. That can't go on forever, though. Absorbing the tariffs is pressuring their bottom lines, which means they have less money left over for investments, pay rises or Christmas bonuses. This has been showing up in both the soft and hard data, with companies cutting back their hiring plans, job and wage growth slowing and future investment plans softening. Opinion: The market is in denial. Trump wants higher tariffs, and he's getting them Opinion: Trump's trade war madness won't last The picture that emerges, therefore, is of an economy that is slowing as businesses absorb the tariffs. The slowing economy has reduced demand, which in turn has caused service-sector prices to rise more slowly. That disinflation has then counterbalanced the price rises we are seeing elsewhere in the economy, where the impact of tariffs is starting to materialize. For instance, food prices are trending back up in the U.S., which is to be expected since unlike durable goods, food can't be stockpiled, so the effect of tariffs shows up more quickly. In other words, good news on inflation is bad news for the economy. That may be an omen of what lies ahead. If the economy continues slowing, falling demand may keep prices from rising too sharply, but it could also point to a coming recession. Hardly a vindication of the White House. If instead the tax-cuts windfall from Mr. Trump's Big Beautiful Bill stokes sufficient demand to keep the economy out of recession, but the tariffs remain in place, companies will eventually pass along the price rises. That could begin happening in the autumn. The return of inflation, not least to food prices, would also augur ill for the White House, given that Mr. Trump ran for office promising to bring them down. The worst scenario of all is that we get a bit of both, raising the prospect of the dreaded stagflation returning. Mr. Trump's get-out-of-jail card will be if America's trading partners cave and agree to trade deals which both boost U.S. export sales and allow tariffs to fall. So the next few weeks will be crucial, since the President has set Aug. 1 as a deadline for many of the tariffs to take effect. He has until then to end his trade wars, with either victory or surrender. If neither happens, autumn could turn ugly.
