May’s Inflation Print Reveals Why Tariff Critics Were Dead Wrong

Shah Gilani|June 13, 2025

President Trump’s “Shock-and-Soothe” market doctrine is doing exactly what the playbook promised…

Rattle the tape just enough to remind traders who’s in charge, then nurse risk assets back toward record territory.

The S&P 500 closed yesterday at 6,045, barely 1.6% shy of its February peak at 6,144. The Dow and Nasdaq sit within similar whiskers of their own all-time highs.

These are textbook confirmation that the so-called tariff tantrums were tactical, not terminal.

I’ve sung this refrain for months: the president’s master plan keeps markets on edge but on rails.

Every hardball tariff headline shakes weak hands out of the trade. Every measured walk-back or strategic delay invites institutional money to reload (if they’re smart enough).

The reward for investors who saw through the feints is on the screen now – a market levitating toward escape velocity even before we cross the old highs.

Where’s the inflationary blowback the pundits warned about?

It’s nowhere to be found.

A Piddling Rise

May’s Consumer Price Index rose a piddling 0.1% month-over-month and only 2.4% year-over-year. Core CPI mirrored that tame print and is running at 2.8% year-over-year – barely breathing room above the Fed’s 2% target band.

Producer prices tell the same story.

May’s Producer Price Index advanced a microscopic 0.1% on the month. Wholesale prices are up just 2.6% over the last 12 months.

The Fed’s favorite gauge, core Personal Consumption Expenditures, clocked in at +0.1% month-over-month in April and 2.5% year-over-year – its softest pace in four years.

If tariffs were lighting an inflationary fire, it would already be smoldering in these numbers. It isn’t.

And the bond market just stamped that verdict in ink.

Vote of Confidence

Wednesday’s $39 billion 10-year auction cleared at 4.421%. Foreign indirect bidders snapped up over 70% of the issue.

Twenty-four hours later, the Treasury sold $22 billion of 30-year bonds at 4.844%.

That is not the tape of a market bracing for spiraling deficits or runaway prices. It’s a vote of confidence that yields can drift lower and leave the Fed room to cut.

Traders are already leaning that way. Fed-funds futures now price the first cut as early as the September meeting, emboldened by the cooler Consumer Price Index-Producer Price Index combo and solid auction demand.

Lower policy rates ahead – plus a 4.5% long bond – are catnip for the equity risk premium.

Even geopolitics couldn’t break the spell…

Volatility Shrugs

Israel’s overnight bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities – an event that would have sent the VIX screaming in any other cycle – barely dented U.S. futures. Oil popped, headlines blared, but stocks shrugged as if to say, “Wake us when Brent cracks triple digits.”

Volatility itself? The VIX staggered in at just above 20 after the smoke cleared, miles below the panic line at 30. Sub-20 VIX volatility with the S&P nearly kissing its highs is a magnet for the sidelined cash that missed the first leg of the rally.

Breaking out to fresh records means the fear of missing out turns into forced buying by systematic funds and benchmark huggers alike.

A Bullish High-Wire Act

Trump’s high-wire tariff act has proved net bullish – jolting markets to shake out complacency, yet ultimately reinforcing the uptrend. Inflation is docile, the bond market is rolling out the red carpet for rate cuts, and even a Middle East shock couldn’t spook equity bulls.

When the major indexes print new closing highs, expect a wall of cash to chase the breakout. That inflow won’t just pad investors’ pockets – it will hand the president a towering political win heading into the fall.

This is the inflection point I’ve been telling you about…

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