Wall Street’s “Sell America” Alarm Is Blinking Again — And This Week’s Fed + Big Tech Earnings Could Decide If It Spreads

Markets are starting the week with a familiar (and increasingly expensive) cocktail: tariff threats , shutdown math , FX intervention chatter, and a Fed meeting that would normally be the “main event” but is now competing with politics for headline oxygen. The unifying theme is that “sell America” has re-entered the vocabulary as the dollar slides, safe havens rip, and investors treat policy uncertainty as a risk premium that has to be paid in real time.

Start with the Canada angle, because it’s the cleanest driver of “policy volatility.” Over the weekend, President Trump renewed the threat of a 100% tariff on Canada tied to Canada’s relationship with China. Ottawa has pushed back hard, with Prime Minister Mark Carney reiterating that Canada is honoring USMCA commitments and has no plans for a free trade agreement with China—trying to de-fang the trigger condition that would light up tariffs. The market takeaway isn’t that a 100% tariff is imminent; it’s that tariffs are still being used as leverage against close allies, and that’s enough to keep multinational risk managers trimming exposure at the margin. Even if traders “discount” the follow-through, they can’t discount the volatility, and volatility is what tightens financial conditions.

That dovetails with the second big Washington risk: government funding. Betting markets have repriced shutdown odds sharply higher into the end-of-month deadline, with the proximate catalyst being a political clash over DHS funding and oversight after a high-profile incident in Minnesota. Whether a shutdown happens or not, the market impact tends to show up in the same places first: softer risk sentiment, a bid to the front end of the Treasury curve, and a preference for liquidity. Equities don’t love “process risk,” and shutdown headlines are basically process risk on an IV drip.

The third macro pillar is FX, and it’s doing more work than equities right now. The broad dollar is weak again, and USD/JPY has become the pressure point because intervention risk is suddenly back on the table. Reuters reported that the New York Fed carried out dollar/yen “rate checks,” a step that markets often interpret as a prelude or warning shot ahead of intervention. Add in pointed language from Japanese officials about “abnormal moves,” and you get a market that’s leaning over its skis on yen shorts—creating the kind of squeeze that can spill into global risk assets. The cross-asset translation is straightforward: a falling dollar plus intervention speculation tends to be supportive for gold, disruptive for risk parity assumptions, and a mild negative for U.S. equities when the narrative becomes “global investors are reducing U.S. exposure.”

And that’s exactly what the tape is signaling in cross-asset price action. Precious metals are acting like the scoreboard: gold has pushed above $5,000/oz and silver is ripping, reflecting a mix of geopolitical uncertainty, policy credibility concerns, and pure debasement trade dynamics. In rates, Treasuries are modestly bid as investors hedge growth/policy shocks and position for the Fed to remain cautious. Crypto is holding up (with typical weekend whiplash), which fits the broader “dollar skepticism” vibe even if the day-to-day correlation is messy. Energy is more nuanced: crude is relatively contained, but any Iran-related escalation risk can reprice quickly and feed back into inflation expectations.

Layer in geopolitics and you get the “background radiation” that keeps hedges expensive: Iran risk, ongoing tensions around Greenland (and the broader “tariffs as leverage” framework), and Europe moving toward restricting Russian LNG imports by 2027, which keeps medium-term energy security on the radar even if it’s not today’s tick driver. This matters because geopolitics is what turns a normal macro week into a correlation week—when everything trades together and investors pay up for downside protection.

Now the calendar. Tuesday brings Trump’s speech framed around affordability, which is a market event because it can shift expectations around fiscal posture, trade posture, and (implicitly) pressure on the Fed. The bigger macro catalyst is Wednesday’s Fed decision. The base case is a hold, but the market cares less about the rate and more about the tone: how Powell frames inflation progress, labor market resilience, and—quietly—how he handles questions about institutional independence. Relatedly, prediction-market chatter around the next Fed chair is part of the risk premium. It’s not that markets are trading prediction odds tick-for-tick; it’s that investors are increasingly forced to handicap a wider policy distribution.

Here’s the twist for this week: earnings can easily hijack the narrative. Roughly 20% of the S&P 500 is set to report, led by four of the mega-cap complex. In a “normal” tape, Big Tech prints would dominate everything else because index math is index math. But in a “sell America” tape, strong earnings can still be met with multiple compression if the dollar slide and policy volatility keep pushing the equity risk premium higher. The key is whether earnings restore confidence in U.S. growth exceptionalism (supporting equities even with political noise) or whether they simply become a liquidity event where investors sell strength into uncertainty.

What investors should watch across assets this week:

FX: USD/JPY levels and official rhetoric; any escalation from “rate checks” to action would be a genuine regime signal for macro positioning.

Rates: whether Treasury yields fall on risk aversion (bull flattening) or back up on tariff/inflation fears (bear steepening).

Gold and the dollar together: a rising gold price with a falling dollar is the market voting for hedges over confidence.

Canada headlines: any concrete negotiating framework vs. more rhetorical escalation; the market can tolerate threats, but not endless uncertainty.

Shutdown optics: not just “will it happen,” but “how chaotic does the process look,” because chaos is what bleeds into sentiment.

Earnings breadth: whether beats are being rewarded, and whether guidance is stabilizing or getting cautious.

The bottom line is that this is a week where cross-asset signals may matter more than any single headline. Equities are trying to hold the line into earnings, but FX and metals are telling you investors are paying up for protection. If that divergence persists, the market is effectively saying: “Sure, profits might be fine. We’re just not sure the policy backdrop deserves the old multiple.”