As the trade war rages on, big box stores are fearful of big empty shelves. And, according to an Axios report, they’re letting the White House know it.

This week, the CEOs of Target, Walmart, and Home Depot convened with the president to warn that supply chain disruptions caused by tariffs will lead to notable product shortages in their stores within just a couple of weeks, sources told Axios. The scare may have worked: On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is considering steps to de-escalate trade tensions with China. As for the evidence for the CEO trio’s big scary claims, look no further than US ports.

Port Jesters

As companies and consumers alike scrambled to get ahead of the tariff waves, imports into the US have exploded so far this year. According to Census Bureau data, US imports of consumer goods increased about 25% year-over-year in both February and January (figures for March have not yet been released). The port of Los Angeles, one of the nation’s biggest, is expecting 22 vessel arrivals this week, an increase of 57% year-over-year.

But the frontloading is simply the storm before the dreaded calm. Freight company HLS Group told clients earlier this month that it has already recorded 80 cancelled vessels out of China as tariffs crunch demand (China accounts for about 30% of all containerized US imports; it takes about two to three weeks for ships to travel from China to West Coast US ports). The ports are preparing for a serious drop-off in activity:

• Imports in the second half of 2025 are expected to be down at least 20% year-over-year, according to the Global Port Tracker report recently published by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
• And the downturn may be right around the corner: The port of Los Angeles has just 16 vessels scheduled to arrive the week of May 4, a 34% year-over-year decrease; the port of Long Beach is probably facing a 25% decrease in imports year-over-year in May, which is now expected to see the end of a 19 month-long streak of year-over-year increases in import volume, according to the Global Port Tracker report.

“We are at a tipping point on the West Coast,” Ken Adamo, chief of analytics at DAT Freight & Analytics, told CNBC earlier this week. “Looking at how many truckloads are available versus trucks, we’ve seen a precipitous drop. Over 700,000 loads have evaporated nationally in the past week compared to two weeks prior.”

Custom Made: The White House often touts tariffs for their revenue-generating ability, and on Wednesday, data released by the US Treasury Department showed that revenue from customs duties reached at least $16 billion in April, up 60% year-over-year. The White House has also suggested, however, that tariffs could possibly replace the federal income tax in the long term. Last year, the IRS said it collected some $1.14 trillion in federal income taxes. It’ll take a lot of tariffs to close that gap.

When you’re Boeing these days, not bad is pretty, pretty good.

After burning a Mount Rainier-sized pile of cash in 2024, the embattled aerospace manufacturer showed signs of recovery in the first quarter, narrowing losses and trying out the novel concept of making and delivering planes, according to its latest financial report.

Price at Your Peril

It was only last year that 737 felt like the number of scandals Boeing was embroiled in, rather than the name of its popular narrow-body aircraft. There were years of safety issues, culminating in the famous door plug that blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024. Allegations of whistleblower intimidation followed as the company was accused of cutting corners. In the previous five years, the company had as many CEOs as there are letters in CEO.

The combination of regulators stepping in to limit Boeing’s production until the company improved its standards and a nearly two-month worker strike left the company saddled with an $11.8 billion loss in 2024, more than five times the $2.2 billion loss a year earlier. Which explains why even modestly good news was enough to send Boeing’s stock soaring about 6% on the day:

• No, the company didn’t make a profit (let’s not go crazy), but the $31 million net loss in the first quarter was a massive improvement from the $355 million Boeing lost in the same period last year. Revenue achieved liftoff, rising 18% to $19.5 billion and beating Wall Street expectations. Boeing’s free cash burn — aka how much of its reserves it used — of $2.3 billion was much more restrained than the consensus $3.4 billion analysts expected, not to mention the $4 billion in Q1 2024.
• Then there are the deliveries: Boeing’s commercial airplanes revenue climbed 75% to $8.15 billion on the delivery of 130 jets, an almost 60% increase over Q1 2024. Since last year’s door-plug accident, Boeing has required Federal Aviation Administration approval to produce more than 38 of its 737 Max jets per month: Current CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over in August 2024, said the company is on track to stabilize production at that level later this year, at which point it will ask for incremental hikes every few months until it reaches roughly 52.

In another sign that Boeing’s luck is not what it once was (bad), the company recently managed to secure new stocks of specialized nuts and bolts after a fire at a supplier’s factory earlier this year threatened a shortage that would delay production.

It Pays to Be Behind: Boeing, like every company on earth or at a 41,000-foot cruising altitude above it, is facing uncertainty thanks to tariff warring between China and the US. Beijing has already ordered Chinese airlines to return some Boeing aircraft and put a pause on future orders. However, Ortberg said Wednesday that Boeing can use planes that Chinese customers no longer want to meet demand elsewhere: Its backlog is worth $545 billion, and includes more than 5,400 commercial aircraft, according to the company’s latest financials. China accounts for only about 10% of that.

The apples did not fall far from the blockchain tree.

In February, crypto-fanatic Howard Lutnick, 63, stepped down as chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald after being confirmed as the US Secretary of Commerce. In his stead, his 27-year-old son Brandon took over as chairman and his 28-year-old son Kyle was elevated to executive vice chairman. On Wednesday, with the younger Lutnicks at the wheel, the investment bank announced a multibillion-dollar bitcoin acquisition project in partnership with Tether, Bitfinex and SoftBank. If you are so inclined, you can own a piece of it.

No Need for a Wallet

The new venture, dubbed Twenty One, will go public via a Cantor-owned special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It will hold massive amounts of bitcoin, giving investors a way to own shares that offer exposure to bitcoin without requiring direct holdings.

The plan is to launch with 42,000 bitcoins, worth about $3.6 billion as of yesterday, with Tether pitching in $1.6 billion worth, Softbank $900 million and Bitfinex $600 million. The company said Wednesday it has agreements to raise an additional $585 million — including $350 million from a bond and $250 million from an equity sale — so it can purchase more bitcoin to beef up its digital war chest. This is not a new business strategy on its own, but the Twenty One venture sounds like it will have some unique features:

• Michael Saylor’s Strategy (rebranded from MicroStrategy earlier this year) has amassed a giant holding of over half a million bitcoin, worth roughly $50 billion at current prices, since 2020. As the cryptocurrency’s value has risen (including this week, with some investors adopting it as a new potential safe haven), so has its price, which is up 19% this year — it is, however, down more than 25% from its November post-election spike that came after President Donald Trump’s victory triggered a wave of crypto enthusiasm.
• As for the unique bit, Twenty One said it plans to push for bitcoin’s adoption by “supporting financial products built with and on” the cryptocurrency while also creating “bitcoin-focused content and media.” Basically it will be an advocacy organization for its own holdings, though what said content will look like is TBD (calling all crypto-bro content creators).

Put a Gamestop to It: Other companies — like Elon Musk-led Tesla, which has nearly $1 billion in digital assets, and meme stock GameStop, which said last month it plans to borrow $1.3 billion via convertible bonds, at least some of which will be spent on bitcoin — have added crypto to their portfolios. But, with Tesla down nearly 34% this year and Gamestop down almost 12%, it’s no silver bullet (some traders would tell you the real silver-bullet asset is gold).