Asian equities were lower as our “tariffs higher = markets down” theory was proven correct by Nvidia’s announcement that it will take a Q1 charge of $5.5 billion. The US government will require Nvidia to obtain an export license for its H20 chips. No word from AMD (yet), as their MI308 chips will also require an export license.

In the run-up to the reversal of many of President Trump’s tariffs, we saw some true panic selling that turned into what can only be called panic buying.