After spooking markets with a wave of heavy-handed tariffs, Trump has backpedaled and further excluded a bunch of tech gear like smartphones, laptops, semis, and solar panels from the eye-watering 145% tariff hike on Chinese imports. The move is being spun as a strategic push to give companies time to shift manufacturing to the US, but let's be honest, it probably has more to do with the $640 billion Apple selloff and tech stocks bleeding out.

Investors like us can breathe a big sigh of relief. Apple, which still makes the majority of its products in China, was staring down a pricing disaster that could've made iPhones unaffordable luxuries. Same for Nvidia and other chipmakers who rely heavily on Chinese supply chains, tariffs on semis would've wrecked margins and disrupted the flow of components.

Now, with exemptions in place (applied retrospectively to early April), markets have some much-needed clarity. It's a win for us the Apple-Nvidia crowd, and possibly a signal that the White House is paying attention to Wall Street's reaction.

Having said the above, let's wait to see how this all pans out.

Wow, what an eventful few days. Last week was the best week for the market in two years, and yet it still didn't recover all the losses of the period 10 days ago, when the massive "reciprocal" tariffs (aka. taxes) were announced. The market still has do some more lifting to get back to its February levels. Share prices don't like uncertainty, and there has been way too much of that around recently.

Thankfully for Apple, taxes on electronics have been lifted, as mentioned above. Last week, Apple flew six planes loads of iPhones from India to the US in an attempt to get ahead of the tariffs. That's roughly 600 tons, which is estimated to be around 1.5 million phones. It sounds like a scenario out of a war zone, where there is an emergency airlift of vital equipment.

Some European car manufacturers had paused their cars from crossing US customs until there was more certainty on tariffs. If the other so-called "reciprocal" tariffs hadn't been delayed, I wonder how long the freeze on EU car imports would have lasted.

Spare a thought for logistics companies who have been scrambling to keep up to date with all the tariff changes. At times, different White House staff were contradicting each other on the applicable levels for specific countries.

Global supply chains are complicated, and can't change overnight. All the whipsawing in tariff decisions and the lack of planning is a problem. It simply is not how you set international trade policy.

The last month has been very tough for those of us invested in US markets, but we've also had some spectacular up days.

That's not unusual. According to Ned Davis Research, in the last 20 years, 42% of the S&P 500's strongest days occurred during bear markets.

Another 36% of the market's best days took place in the first two months of a bull market, before it was clear that the recovery had begun.

In other words, the best way to weather a downturn is to stay fully invested because it's simply impossible to time the market's recovery.

This point is even more valid now, because this selloff was not caused by war, bad weather, a pandemic or inflation. It was caused by misguided policies, and as we've now seen, such steps can be reversed.

Scientists have engineered mice with some funky DNA. They put in some genes of an extinct animal - The woolly mouse a step closer to the mammoth.

There are around 30 000 families worth more than $100 million. These are people who you want as citizens because they create wealth for the society around them - The world's top cities for centi-millionaires.

Asian markets opened higher this morning, riding the wave of relief from the US decision to exclude iPhones and other electronics from tariffs. Apple-related suppliers got a boost, lifting broader indices across the region.

In local company news, Vukile's European expansion continues: its subsidiary Castellana Properties (via 70%-owned Caminho Propicio) is buying the Forum Madeira shopping centre in Funchal, Portugal for EUR63.3 million. Elsewhere, Gemfields is turning to shareholders for a $30 million (R579m) cash lifeline, proposing a rights issue to plug a funding gap caused by ongoing civil unrest in Mozambique.

US equity futures are firmly in the green pre-market. The Rand is trading at around R19.09 to the US Dollar.

Have a good week, it's a short one with Easter coming up, so too is next week and the week after that!