Not even the penguins were spared last week when President Trump unveiled across-the-board tariffs on more than 180 countries, including the biggest US trading partners and remote islands home to mostly flightless birds.

Major stock indices sank in response, with the S&P 500 notching its biggest single-day decline in market value since the onset of the pandemic on Thursday. US Treasury yields fell, gold’s rally stalled, and the US dollar — usually stronger amid turmoil — weakened.

There’s No Place Like Home

The greenback isn’t looking like much of a refuge lately, though it’s supposed to be, in good times or bad. Economic theory and history say the value of the dollar rises relative to other currencies on higher tariffs. Explanations abound for the change in behavior: A surprise upset in the outlook for growth and fears that the US dollar was poised to fall given its rich valuations, as well as currency traders finding a better deal in Japanese yen in the immediate aftermath of market shock, to name two. Or chalk it up to a loss of confidence in US economic policy because tariff-rate calculations didn’t exactly math.

Meanwhile, stock investors are finding some level of safety in defensive pockets of the market. Consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities outperformed the S&P 500 last week. These sectors have historically fared better than others during economic downturns and are viewed as somewhat “recession-proof” because they peddle products and services that folks don’t skimp on in good times or bad. Think groceries, medical care, and whatever keeps the lights on at home.

Wall Street strategists last week offered up other options that could provide shelter from the tariff-induced market jitters:

• Morgan Stanley’s chief US equity strategist, Mike Wilson, recommended looking for companies that have the scale and negotiating power to mitigate tariff risk. “This all leads us back to large-cap quality as the key factor to focus on when picking stocks,” he said in his weekly market podcast.
• “Insurance stocks remain technically attractive and have avoided much of the recent weakness,” FSInsight’s head of technical strategy, Mark Newton, said in a note, recommending the SPDR Insurance ETF (KIE) be “overweighted” within the financial sector.

Insensitivity Training: Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs’s equity strategists published what they called the “Insensitive Portfolio,” a list of 45 stocks that are less likely to swing with the market, up or down. PG&E (PCG) and CenterPoint Energy (CNP), medical equipment-makers Boston Scientific (BSX) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), as well as grocery chain Kroger (KR) fit the bill, according to the firm.

And now his DOGE watch is ending. Allegedly.

Last week, Politico reported that Trump has told advisors and cabinet members that Elon Musk would soon be stepping down from his role as DOGE head honcho and White House consigliere. Legally speaking, the “special government employee” position held by Musk has a 130-day cap, which would likely put the end of his tenure sometime in late May or early June. With his myriad side-hustles, however — Tesla, X, xAI, et al. — the world’s richest man, some $110 billion poorer so far this year, still has plenty of work cut out for him.

xAI Marks the Spot

First things first: Tesla. The EV giant’s stock has tumbled more than 40% year-to-date, including a roughly 10% skid in Friday’s wipeout. Shareholders seem so desperate to get Musk’s full attention back as CEO that shares actually jumped last Wednesday on reports of his possible DOGE departure.

The dip has been driven by fundamentals, however. Last year marked the company’s first-ever sales decline, and the deceleration seems to be continuing. Data published Thursday showed Tesla delivered just 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter of 2025, a 13% year-over-year dip, marking its weakest point in three years and well below analysts’ expectations. Deutsche Bank analysts expect a 5% sales decline overall for 2025, likely buffered by the rollout of a much-awaited refresh of the company’s popular Model Y electric SUV. The skid — driven in part by a global boycott movement — is enough for longtime Tesla shareholder Ross Gerber to declare it time for Musk to step down as the company’s top executive altogether.

Elsewhere in the empire, things are similarly up and down:

• In what could technically be considered one of the biggest deals of the year, Musk’s xAI acquired his social media network X, in an all-stock deal that valued the former at $80 billion and the latter at $30 billion (way up from Fidelity’s $10 billion implied valuation late last summer). In an interesting, unorthodox wrinkle, the same advisers from Morgan Stanley and Sullivan & Cromwell worked both sides of the deal.
• Meanwhile, SpaceX subsidiary Starlink has become something of a political football. A Musk social media outburst appears to have cost Starlink a $7 billion contract to develop telecommunication infrastructure with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in Latin America, and last week the government of Yukon, Canada, said it’d be canceling its 90 Starlink contracts in retaliation for tariffs.

So Long, Farewell: Of course, Musk’s DOGE departure remains something of an “if,” not a “when.” The Tesla leader called reports of his departure “fake news” in an X post. And Vice President JD Vance said Musk would remain a “friend and adviser” to the president if and when he leaves.

“Bye for now, IPO later?” After watching global equities markets get throttled last week, that’s what executives at buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Klarna are thinking.

They’re not alone. Several high-profile firms that were expected to go public have decided to delay their plans rather than plunge headfirst into the chaos unleashed by the US administration’s sweeping tariffs.

The Roadshow Not Taken

This year began with great promise for the US IPO market, with bankers forecasting a new presidential administration would put an end to a three-year drought with business-friendly policies including tax cuts and red-tape reductions. The final trading day of March even brought great promise in the form of CoreWeave’s $1.5 billion offering, the biggest tech debut since Arm in 2023.

And while the Republicans in power could very well still pursue the above-mentioned pro-business policies, energy so far has been spent taking an axe to historic trade alliances. Markets, unsurprisingly, are less fond of that, which has made going public suddenly less appetizing: Who is scrambling to get into a world where the S&P 500 is down 12.8% this year and the Nasdaq Composite 18.4%? Not these folks:

• Klarna, which filed IPO documents in New York last month, was expected to seek a $15 billion valuation, but sources told the Wall Street Journal Friday that those plans are on hold. To boot, medical equipment manufacturer Medline, which was seeking a nearly $50 billion valuation, paused its IPO plans, sources told the Financial Times. Investor roadshows in advance of planned offerings by event ticket retailer StubHub and online physical therapy provider Hinge Health are also in indefinite limbo now.
• Klarna need only look at one of its best-known American competitors, Affirm. The company’s shares tanked 9.3% Friday and have cratered more than 42% this year. Not helping is increasingly cautious consumer sentiment — spending rose a mere 0.1% in February after adjusting for prices, according to the Commerce Department.

News Overload: StubHub, which also delayed IPO plans in July last year, reportedly backed out of its roadshow because the company was concerned investors would have neither the time nor the attention span to sit through a feel-good presentation about the secondary tickets market when their phones would likely be blowing up with more news about the global financial markets in meltdown. A reasonable call, to be fair.