Market down today - BUY, BUY, BUY! (Friday Aug 1st 2025)

It seems the tariffs on China and Canada imports that we all knew were coming has caused a dip in the market. Amazon has dropped 8% due to profit worries even though results were good. Volume in trading is low today, so the drop is probably due to small retail investment sentiment rather than large volume traders and so it should bounce up again next Monday.

So today may be a good time to buy more of your favourite stock. We all know that we will get a compromise in the end and that China, Mexico and Canada will work around the tariffs. Taiwan are also going to be subject to 20% tariffs on Aug 7th. Unfortunately, in the end it will be the USA and the USA tax payer that will suffer.

It makes me laugh when Pam Bondi says 'China will pay 30%' - um, no, China won't pay 30%, the US tax payer will 30% more on China imports. It is the importer that pays the tariff to the US government. China don't pay anything. So it is simply a way of imposing a tax on the US people.

Personally, I have topped up on Amazon and EQQQ Nasdaq 100. Others that I have my eye on are HIMS, SOFI and AMD which are also down by 3-5% pre-US-market opening.

The USA is removing (at last) the tax exemption on small packages from China. This will impact Temu, Ali Baba and other mail order companies. It should thus serve to give a boost to Amazon who deliver packages to their members for free.

• The Trump administration is ditching a long-standing tax exemption for low-cost packages as part of the new tariff regime, the White House has announced Thursday.
• The so called “de minimis” exception currently applies to commercial shipments worth less than $800. These can be imported to the US without taxes and complicated paperwork.
• According to the White House, this exemption will end on August 29 for all shipments sent outside the postal system.
• A threshold like this is common in many countries, although the US one is among the higher ones. For comparison, the threshold is $170 in the European Union, $177 in the UK and $70 in Japan.