Toby

The S&P 500 closed at a record high.

Despite this assault on Fed independence, I am surprised that there wasn't

a bigger reaction.

Why are things so normal right now?

So I think maybe in the past, the sell America trade made a lot of headlines back in the spring, but then that turned out to be more of a fad than a long-term realignment of capital.

But it is showing that maybe there was a little bit of logic there to the original sell America trade that hedging your bets when it comes to America, given the events of this past few days, maybe it was a smarter bet than people were expecting.

Yeah, investors are probably just sitting here believing that any effort to undermine the Fed independence will actually fail because of some of these people who have come out and said, yeah, we're going to stymie any attempts to replace Powell.

Also, Powell only has four months left as chair.

And so if there's no immediate threat of removal, then maybe that's another reason why stocks kind of chilled out a little bit.

Powell has also kind of

hinted that he would stay on as a governor beyond his term, which, you know, is again, he is kind of seen as a buffer between the president and Fed independence.

So there still is question marks, though, because Powell has taken a lot of heat.

He has been kind of the shock absorber when it comes to Trump's attacks on the Fed.

So there is some nervousness if Powell is gone.

Is there going to still be that same sort of shock absorption that I described?

So there is a little bit of wait and see right now.

But right now,

the stock market basically shrugged it off, which is kind of surprising, but not so surprising.

Moving on, the third biggest company in the world is getting a little help from the second biggest company in the world to advance its AI ambitions.

Apple announced yesterday that it's entering a multi-year deal with Google to make Siri suck a little less.