Markets Rose. Briefly.

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The S&P 500 went up today. A little. 0.69% to be precise, landing at 6,909.51. The Nasdaq Composite managed 0.90%, reaching 22,886.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average crept up 0.47% to 49,625.97. It’s all just numbers, really. Numbers marching toward entropy.

Market Movers

The Supreme Court decided some tariffs were illegal. So, naturally, the companies that benefit from cheap imports had a good day. Wayfair (W +2.34%), Amazon (AMZN +2.59%), eBay (EBAY +3.92%), and Etsy (ETSY +8.58%) all went up. Etsy particularly, a whole 8.58%. They beat expectations. As if expectations mean anything. Alphabet (GOOGL +4.00%) jumped, and Micron Technology (MU +2.36%) got a little boost because of something about AI and memory. It’s all very complicated. Or not.

What This Means For Investors

The market went up after the tariff ruling. It’s a volatile world. The court said the government overstepped. Then, the President announced he’d find another way to impose tariffs. A different law. It’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. So it goes.

The dollar slipped. Stocks reversed course. The week ended in the green. A temporary reprieve. Companies like Costco (COST 0.30%) and Toyota (TM 0.85%) are hoping to get back some of the $170 billion they already paid in levies. A drop in the ocean, really.

The economic data for the last quarter of 2025 came out. GDP grew 1.4%. Slower than expected. Down from 4.4% the previous quarter. The government shutdown didn’t help. None of it does, in the long run. We build, we consume, we decay. It’s the natural order of things.

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2026-02-21 01:06