The Court Said No. The President Said Fine, Watch This.
The Court Said No. The President Said Fine, Watch This.
February 23, 2026
Friday was supposed to be a clean win. Six-to-three, SCOTUS ruled that invoking IEEPA to impose sweeping global tariffs was an overreach — a constitutional slap delivered in plain English. Markets initially popped. The S&P clawed back to 6,909. The Nasdaq snapped its five-week losing streak. Amazon bounced 2.6%, Home Depot ticked up, traders started pricing in $175 billion in potential tariff refunds, and for a few hours the whole trade-war anxiety that had been coiling under the surface since last spring seemed like it might just exhale.
Then came the executive order.
A new 10% global tariff. Same destination, different vehicle. Section 122 this time, apparently, while the administration uses the next 150 days to build fresh justifications for going higher. By Sunday, the number had already risen — 15%, effective immediately, the White House announced. Monday morning, S&P futures slid 0.7%. The celebration lasted about as long as a good night's sleep.
This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you "policy uncertainty remains elevated." I won't. What we're watching is something more structurally interesting: a stress test of whether institutional capital has the stomach to price in a government that treats legal defeats as scheduling problems. The Supreme Court doesn't block the tariff. It just redirects the plumbing.
Markets, to their credit, are starting to figure this out. The initial whipsaw on Friday — rally, selloff, rally again — wasn't confusion. It was a rational update. The overhang of this specific tariff regime lifts, yes. But the signal is that tariffs, in some form, are now as permanent a feature of the American economic landscape as the Fed funds rate. You don't trade around them. You embed them.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the shadow of all this tariff theater, Bitcoin continued doing what it's been doing since October: bleeding quietly, with occasional violent lurches to remind you it's still alive.
BTC is sitting around $64,700 this morning. Down nearly 49% from its October highs. The longest Bitcoin ETF outflow streak since February 2025 has now extended five weeks, with roughly $3.8 billion pulled from U.S.-listed spot funds — BlackRock's IBIT leading the retreat at $2.13 billion in redemptions. The Fear & Greed Index is at 5. Not fifty. Not fifteen. Five out of a hundred, which is the kind of number that either means you're at the bottom or you're in the part of the story that people don't talk about in the bull market retrospectives.
Here's what makes this crypto cycle genuinely strange: the macro backdrop that was supposed to be crypto's moment never materialized the way anyone expected. A crypto-friendly administration in Washington, institutional ETF infrastructure finally in place, corporate treasury adoption accelerating — a Nasdaq-listed company called GD Culture Group announced a $787.5 million Bitcoin purchase agreement this weekend, positioning itself to become the 14th largest publicly traded BTC holder. The market responded by dropping its stock 28% in a single session.
Vitalik has been selling ETH. Spot volumes have collapsed. Solana is down 8% in 24 hours, sitting at $77. The crowd that was calling $200K BTC in Q1 has gone very quiet.
Since inauguration day, the total crypto market cap has dropped $1.3 trillion, while Binance spot trading volumes have reportedly cratered 95%. That's not a correction. That's a confidence event. Something broke in October — not technically, but emotionally — and the ecosystem hasn't found the narrative to replace it.
The contrarian case exists. RSI on Bitcoin futures was below 21 a few weeks ago, historically extreme oversold territory. The leverage flush has been orderly, not chaotic. K33 Research's regime model suggests the market is approaching a cyclical trough, likely ranging between $60,000 and $75,000 for an extended period. But "extended period of consolidation" is a polite way of saying: don't hold your breath.
Back in equities, the week ahead has one thing everyone is watching: Nvidia reports Wednesday.
The entire AI investment thesis — $200 billion in Amazon capex, Meta's chip hoarding, the avalanche of hyperscaler spend — runs through this one earnings call. NVDA has been the load-bearing wall of the Nasdaq for two years. Any wobble in guidance, any hint of demand softness, any datapoint that suggests the AI build cycle is maturing faster than expected, and you'll have a very different market by Thursday morning.
Core PCE is sitting at 3%, sticky and stubborn. GDP came in at 1.4% for Q4, weighed down partly by the government shutdown. The Fed isn't moving. The FOMC held the federal funds rate at 3.50%–3.75%, with two dissenters voting to cut. Bessent is managing the tariff chaos from Treasury. Iran nuclear talks resume in Geneva on Thursday. Oil futures already touched $66, a 2026 high.
The VIX has been camping above 20 for weeks. That's not fear exactly — it's more like a market that has priced in the idea that surprise is the default condition. Which, honestly, is the most accurate description of 2026 so far.
The Supreme Court ruling was real. It mattered. The rule-of-law signal, the potential refunds, the partial unwinding of trade anxiety — all of it was genuine and meaningful. But by Sunday evening the White House had essentially said: interesting ruling, here's a different piece of legislation.
Markets are learning a new grammar. The sentences are different, but the meaning keeps coming out the same.
Don't get too comfortable with Friday's close.
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