Don't touch that dial, there's just one hour left to go until Tuesday's closing bell and Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton are sticking around to break down the biggest market stories.
RBC Capital Markets economist Carrie Freestone shares her perspective on April's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report in relation to President Trump's tariffs and the trade war truce between the US and China.
Bernstein Senior Analyst Aneesha Sherman joins the Market Domination team to relay the inventory challenges retailers could face now that shipments from China are set to resume.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here.
Hello and welcome to Market Domination sponsored by TC Trade. I'm Julie Hyman. That's Josh Lipton live from our New York City headquarters. We are giving you the ultimate investing playbook to help tune out the noise and make the right moves for your money. And
here's your headline blitz getting you up to speed one hour before the closing bell rings on Wall Street.
I came in a little bit soft, so 24 basis points month on month. We were looking for 0.27, so really not that different. I think the key thing for everybody to keep in mind is the tariff impact hasn't really played out yet, so that should happen in the next couple of months. That said, the good news is, of course, the tariffs are a lot lower than we initially anticipated. So as of now we are still seeing some weakness in services, so that's something to keep an eye on. It does suggest that certainly on the travel side, the consumer is a little bit softer here.And then the good side, it was a little bit mixed, but overall the net net was was a little bit soft.
I think it's Apple and Nvidia. I mean, if you look at this, that was the black cloud, right? I mean, the supply chain hearts and lungs are in China. And as much as you could talk about moving to India and others, this is a huge sigh of relief. And and I think it changes our view that, you know, new highs for tech, new highs for the market, now on the table after what we just view as a dream scenario happened this weekend.
Yeah, really surprising news out of UnitedHealthcare, but not so much if you've been watching the company rough past couple of years between pressure from the federal government, a DOJ investigation, FTC scrutiny, as well as higher medical costs coming especially from its Medicare advantage, butExecutives on a call today to investors saying that that could spread to other areas with this change in leadership, bringing back a former CEO Stephen Hemsley is looking to right size the ship and bring costs under control and bring the company back to profitability in 2026.
We got one hour to go until the market close. We're taking a look at the major averages. There's a lot going on today actually. So we've got a mixed picture. The Dow right now is down about 180 points. It's being dragged in part by UnitedHealth, which we just heard Angel Julie talking about, and we're going to talk about later in the show. But that's really the outlier because the S&P 500 is up 1% today. The Nasdaq is up 1.8% today, and the S&P, we should mention, has also erased its losses for the year. It's now up about 3% a year a day.Which is kind of remarkable. The, you know, the V basically that we've seen in the markets, all of this based on tariff bad, no more tariff good.
I mean, the, the move there. I mean you think about liberation Day and then the headlines and the drama and stocks get whacked. And now to your point, you are positive on the year, just barely, but you're positive on the year, which has been just a wild ride and we'll talk to strategists about that. She mentioned economic data today too.We did core inflation. Core inflation did come in just slightly below estimates. Now there are economists, and I think we're going to talk to one on the show today who would argue in their opinion that's kind of a stale report in the context of tariffs, but we'll talkabout that
as well. We will, and you see yields, it looks like there's the year to date, but if you look at yields today, we're seeing a little bit of a checkup in yields. I just wanted to dig a little bit more into the sort of a mixed picture that we are seeing today among the major averages. So here's a look atThe Dow intraday, and we can equal weight to get a better look. Now here you have UnitedHealth, which is down 17%, almost 18% today, and we're seeing a lot of other healthcare get caught in that downdraft. But all the way up here to the plus side is Nvidia, which is crossing the $3 trillion mark once again reclaiming it, I guess you could say in terms of its market cap. It's up 6%. As we know, President Trump is in Saudi Arabia. There's a big conference going on there and also one of the people there.Is Nvidia CEO Jenson Wong, and we got the announcement that both Nvidia and AMD are going to be doing a big high-end chip order for a Saudi Arabian company, something that wasn't previously permitted under US rules. So we see that by the way,
it's just a tech who's who in Saudi Arabia. I mean Jnson Wong, we had Alex Karp, Elon Musk. It was really a spectacle
there, yeah, and if you look at big Cap tech and what it's doing today with the exception of Microsoft becauseWe learned that Microsoft is going to be laying off some folks, um, not a huge layoff, but since Microsoft is a huge company, it's quite a number of people. um, but elsewhere you are seeing a pretty broad rally within large cap technology. All right, yeah, well, Wall Street once again is growing more bullish on the S&P 500 outlook as the markets digest the US and China's 90 day tariff reduction. For more, bring in Yahoo Finance markets reporter Josh Shaffer, and that's.Sort of V or U-turn that we saw in the markets, that's happening with where strategists forecast too it seems
like sometimes sentiment follows price, right, Julie, and you're certainly seeing that among Wall Street strategists. So what we had over the past month or really 1.5, 2 months was a lot of strategists moving down their targets post Trump's April 2nd tariff announcements. The consensus was essentially tariffs would spike inflation, slow economic growth that leads someone to a lower S&P 500 target.Well, when we take this 90 day China pause on tariffs or pause on tariffs to China, I should say, that makes strategists feel a little bit more bullish. You have Goldman Sachs coming out. They boost their S&P 500 target from 5900 to 6100. And then you had Ed Yardeni at Yardenni Research boosting his target from 6000 to 6500. That represents a double digit gain from where we are right now in the benchmark index. And really kind of key to both of these calls is feeling better about.The economic growth story, the odds of recession, and I think that's really kind of been true for just the overall market, right? I was taking a look at poly market odds. That's a betting market on recession odds. That's your mind and orange there you can see as those odds spiked, S&P 500 tanked, right? Then what's been happening as we've seen this rally over the last several weeks, people in general are feeling better about the economy, right? And so you that's certainly one of the things I feel like the market has been pricing during this rally
as they as.We were kind of publishing these notes, Josh, and they were outlining why they were feeling a bit more constructive. What were some of the downside risks they
highlighted? Yeah, I mean, I think a downside risk, Josh, is definitely just the fact that we don't really know still about tariff policy, right? I think David Costin over at Goldman Sachs highlighted that that essentially we think there's going to be more deals, right? That's sort of what the pause kind of signaled to a lot of folks, I think is, OK, a pause on a China deal or China tariffs probably means there's more.Deals coming. What if more deals don't come and your tariff rate doesn't actually come down to the level that people think it does? That's probably a key risk. And then I still think you have Goldman sitting on a 35% chance of a recession, right, that chart we just showed, if you're using betting markets, it's a 40% chance. We're not talking about 15% chance here. People still want to see more economic data and keep watching that labor market and make sure that story plays out, but generally feeling at least better than they were lastweek.
All right, thank you Josh.For more on the latest market moves, let's welcome in now Nancy Curtin Alte Titerman, global chief investment officer. It is good to see you, Nancy, on set. Good to be here. So we were just talking about this market. I want to get your take on this because it has been, Nancy, a wild ride. We had the liberation day and headlines and reports and drama and blood on the streets and then remarkable rebound and as we were talking at the top of the show, now the S&P 500 goes positive.On the year, what do you make of it? What do you, how do you explain that to yourclients? Well,
first of all, we're long term investors and so we have stayed put throughout this entire thing and told our clients not to panic. Don't try to sell on the low and get back in again, and thank goodness because you can never predict when markets turn around and they turn around on a dime. Now I didn't see this weekend, quite amazing what Besset managed to accomplish in China now.See we have this 90 day pause. We, we're a little cautious near term again, we're not doing anything. Uh, we're long term investors. We think we're well suited. We're incredibly well diversified, uh, so our clients really navigated through the turbulence, uh, pretty fine. So, but I think you know we are cautious markets have moved a lot here, uh, and trade deals, let's just think about this trade deals versus LOIs because what he got with the UK was a 5-page agreement letter of intent.Happened with the UK was a 5 page little written agreement, more questions than answers, but I do think it sort of sets some of the framework and what I mean by that is don't expect tariffs to go away. The 10% baseline tariffs we think is going to remain in force. China is going to be higher. Well we'll have the negotiations with other countries, but don't expect tariffs to go away. So you know, tariffs do have a negative economic impact, so we do see a slowdown in the US economy as a result.
And do you think there's also, especially as an international investor, um, do you think that there is also a, a more permanent hit to foreign investors' interest in the United States even if there are these deals that are forged?
So Walter Riston once said capital flows to where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated. So I just put that out there, uh, as a little snippet, but look, uh, foreigners for the last two decades have been.Allocating huge amounts to the states. Why it was rational. The US across pretty much every asset class outperformed and the dollar outperformed on top of that. So today they have very, very large allocations, about $30 trillion foreigners have allocated to the United States and a lot of that's unhedged. So we believe at the margin foreigners will allocate less, not to sell all their securities. We're still the most liquid market in the world. We still have great companies and all the rest of it, but at the margin.If they allocate slightly less and or hedge their exposure, our belief is we could see a lower dollar than we've seen and or a higher cost of capital. We have to finance a $2 trillion deficit. We have $8 trillion of rollover risk, uh, and now we may have some foreigners left showing up at the auctions. So this is something, it's one of the reasons for underweight duration, underweight government bonds as a result.
Let me ask you this you mentioned US economic slowdown that.Means what for corporate profit growth thisyear?
Do you know, I actually think the corporate profit growth will prove more resilient than people think. Well, look, it started the year 12, OK, we're probably gonna end up 6 or 7, something like that. So it will slow down, but take a look at the first quarter, you know, we're, we're 90% of the way through the first quarter. Uh, the profit growth is 13.4% versus expectations of 7%, pretty much, uh, you know, 1011 sectors in positive territory.Margins of hanging in there now you can say, OK, that's backward looking, which it is because that all happened before, you know, April 2nd, uh, but broadly we think there's a lot of shock absorbers in the United States. There's a very good wealth effect, uh, you know, mid to upper end consumers account for 88% of consumption spending. The tariffs hit low end consumers. They're regressive tax. We've got that. We've got the tax bill, uh, winding its way through Congress. We think that's encouraging. There's a lot of goodies.There we've had record buybacks and a lower dollar by the way means better earnings. So let's just factor some of those things in. So our, our view is not that they won't slow versus early year expectations, but they might just be more resilient than people think.
Um, you all managed about $76 billion of assets. Talk to me about who your clients are and what you've been hearing from them during this period of time, because I mean you did point out these tariffs might have hit.Low income consumers, but they've also hit small business owners, some of whom are not low income,
certainly, no, absolutely. Look, we we think getting back to the US economy there will be a slowdown. There is a supply demand disruption. There is a tax on the consumer and by the way, you know, Chinese manufacturing costs per hour are like $12 versus $30 in the United States. So don't expect that we're just going to go out and substitute overnight to something cheaper. But getting back to your question about our clients are ultra high net worth, so we're well.Diversified across asset classes, so that means we have things like, well we have international equities, by the way they're up at 13%. They've done very well this year, uh, infrastructure we think infrastructure is like a multi-decadal theme here. Uh, not only do you have digital infrastructure, there's no Gen AI without power, so, uh, energy infrastructure, and now we have onshoring of production and lots of incentives for companies to invest in the United States. We like infrastructure that's been positive private credit's been positive.National equities bonds have been positive, so a diversified portfolio navigated pretty well through that. Yeah, look, our clients called a lot. They were nervous, of course, uh, but we continued to say don't panic. Remember we're long term investors. We're well diversified and we're navigating through it. Well of course now markets have come back.
Final question is we're gonna talk to a guest later in the show about gold. I'm just interested in your thoughts on, on the metal, you know, long term. Are you bullish? How do you feel?
So for our more liquid clients, gold has been in portfolios. It's been great, right? It's up 70% in the last two years, uh, you normally don't get a move more than, you know, $1200 in the gold price per ounce in a couple of years. It normally happens over decades, you know, it's 25% over its moving average, you know, it's very extended. So we have uh said to our clients, take a bit of profits, rebalance back to targets, massively outperformed in a portfolio context, but we still think gold is.Really attractive longer term central banks are diversifying. I talked about foreigners. They own a whole lot. They're diversifying their exposure. Central banks are doing that as well, and there's about 23 trillion of gold above the ground. That sounds like a lot, right? It's only 5 trillion that you can buy. So the supply demand, uh, features there we think will still support gold longer term. So we still have it in client portfolios, particularly as a very liquid, uh, ballast other clients have other things as I said like private credit infrastructure.
Nancy, thanks for coming in. I really appreciate it. Thank you. We're just getting started here on market domination. Coming up, we discuss what's next for the Fed after today's inflation reading. Uh, maybe won't make things any easier for the central bank. Plus Coinbase shares surging today as Wall Street cheered the inclusion of the first and only crypto exchange in the S&P 500. We'll check in on some of our top trending tickers later in the hour. Stick around, more market domination still to come.
Well, President Trump resuming criticism of Fed Chair Jay Powell this afternoon, posting on TrueSocial that the Fed must lower rates, our very own Jennifer Schonberger spoke with Republican Congressman Frank Lucas earlier today about the Fed, its structure, and whether he supports Powell, Jen.
Good afternoon, Josh. Republican Congressman Frank Lucas, the new chair of the Monetary Policy Task Force in the House, told me in an interview earlier today that he still supports Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve, even as President Trump once again today criticizing Powell for being too late to lower rates.
Yes, I think under the circumstances, he's done an exceptional job, and he's had an exceptional difficult time to be there. Maybe the most complicated since the 1930s. I also think he'll finish out his term uh at the next year, whichIt's something he's expressed and we'll see who President Trump nominates at that point.
Lucas is leading the House's efforts to review whether the Fed should focus more exclusively on fighting inflation amid a broad review of the central bank. When it comes to the structure of the Fed, Lucas said the fundamental nature of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is solid. Instead, he says the question becomes whether the Fed's dual mandate for maintaining stable prices and full employment is still relevant.
My personal point of view, I suspect that uh while there may be discussion about the employment mandate, it's hard to believe that anything will change. And while my Democrat colleagues will want to expand into other areas as they've tried since Dodd-Frank, I don't think my Republican colleagues will be accepting of that. So, uh, don't expect a dramatic amount of change, I would guess at this stage, but this is early in the process. And remember, we're still uh working with Chairman Hill and the full committee.
Lucas' task force is set to hold a hearing this Thursday on the recent volatility in the treasury market. He says the goal there is to explore why there has been such sudden sell-offs in treasuries and what can be done to mitigate that volatility. Luke is telling me that our treasury markets should be calm, deep, liquid, and boring. Back to you.Yes, I think that's a good goal for many of you want to come I think we would all like a boring treasury market, right, thank you, appreciate it.Well, consumer prices in April remain sticky despite some signs of cooling. Inflation continuing to run above the Fed's target. It's a target that will likely remain elusive as the tariff impact to consumers remains a risk. For more on where the road ahead for inflation is going, let's get to RBC Capital Markets economist Carrie Freestone joining us in the studio. Carrie, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. So the inflation reading first of all, backward looking doesn't include a lot of the tariffs, um, did come in better than estimated, but let's look forward when itComes to inflation because you, you and your team don't think that this is the low you think that we're gonna continue to see a trend higher? Absolutely. I mean we really haven't seen the full impact of tariffs come through yet and it was actually surprising this morning because even if you looked at the auto sector we actually saw a pullback in motor vehicle parts and equipment and that's something that surprised me and it's really telling us that you know it's going to be a while for firms to change their behavior and for us to start to see an impact on core goods prices.One thing that's positive is obviously the administration's walk back yesterday on tariffs on US imports from China is a positive development, but the average effective tariff rate here in the US is still 13%, which is 5 times higher than a year ago. So while previously we thought core inflation by the end of the year might be 4%, we're now thinking closer to 3%, but that's still quite a ways away from the Fed's target, right? So you know, the current backdrop.it exceptionally challenging for us to get to where we want to be.
I'm just with oil at 63, how does that play into your inflation outlook?
Yeah,so we're definitely in a situation where we're going to see downward pressure from energy prices and upward pressure from core goods. So we're in a situation where we're going to see that switch a little bit and the pressure is really going to be coming through from core in the year ahead, um, even today, you know, 2.8% core, so that's, that's where we're seeing a lot of the pressure and that's something that we can.Expect to continue to see. So what does all of this mean for the Federal Reserve, right? Because on the one hand, the tariffs coming off the the worst case scenario seem to be a positive development for the Fed's efforts to balance its dual mandate. But then if we are still going to see that trickle through, it's still gonna be potentially challenging for them, right? There's still a challenging position at the last meeting, Chair Powell emphasized that, you know, there's time to exercise patience, and I think that's even more true.Today after yesterday's announcements, but we're still in a situation where, you know, when we see the upward pressure on core goods prices, that's going to result in a real erosion in consumer purchasing power, right? So we could still see, you know, a hit to the labor market specifically in those trade exposed sectors and while you know Chair Powell's been noncommittal about which side of the mandate he's going to think bears more weight, in our view at RBC we lean towards the fact that we think they're going to be concerned about higher.Unemployment. So right now in our forecast we have 3 cuts baked in in the back half of the year. Now again, you know, it's it's a fast evolving situation, so things could definitely change, but we do think that that side of the mandate is going to bear more weight. Well,
I'm just curious more broadly, Kerry, what's the RBC kind of house you of how the US economy evolves over 2025 with the US-China trade truce? I know you're reading through all these published reports. There are plenty of economists who are saying, OK, our odds.Recession risk are receding, is that yourview?
Absolutely. You know, I think the discussion in the near term of recession risks has maybe pivoted for a little bit, but I do want to highlight, you know, we still have 30% tariffs on imports from China, right? So that's still, you know, way worse off than we were a few months ago. And so that is going to hit the US consumer and while we think that, you know, there is some upside risk to our growth forecast for Q2 and Q3, we're still in a situation where growth is going to be softer this year than it.Was in the past few years, especially when we were in a situation where the consumer had exceptional momentum, we think that's going to cool off. So you know we're not expecting to see a recession this year, but we are definitely expecting to see cooler growth. I have a 2Q GDP question for you. Um what we saw in the first quarter was a surge in imports as people tried to get ahead of the tariffs. Then the tariffs got put in place. Now we have this sort of come down of the tariffs to some extent, and there has been some reporting out there that.You know, importers in the US were waiting for the tariffs to come down to load ships up and bring goods into the US. So does that mean we also risk in the second quarter seeing another rise in inventory that could then push GDP down? Or you don't think it's, I see from your face you're skeptical. You don't think it's going to be that big of an effect. I think most of the effect will be baked in in Q1. So Q1 ultimately we think, you know, it was negative, and we think that Q2 is not going to be negative. We're not expecting to see, you know.Such a significant build up in inventories, but again, we don't see, you know, the full impact of of tariffs fully baking out in Q2. It likely will be into the summer months before we see that impact on inflation and then growth, um, and the reason for that is, you know, it takes businesses to, to, uh, time to make decisions to pass off those higher prices. We saw inventory surge in Q1. We're likely going to see that into Q2. And so, you know, we're probably not gonna see the higher prices materialize until the summer. Got you,
Carrie, great to have you here on set. Thanks so much for coming in. Thanks again.Coming up, does Coinbase's inclusion in the S&P 500 signal a dramatic turnaround? Will the crypto industry stick around. We discuss when market domination.
We're seeing gold higher ahead of the close with softer US inflation data coming in this morning and this all coming after a decline in gold following the announcement that the US and China would reduce tariffs for 90 days. Here to break down the next potential move for gold, Bob Achino, PAT Trading Partners co-founder and chief market strategist and co.Portfolio manager at the stock think tank. Bob, it's always great to see you. So obviously we've had been seeing a huge run in gold on sort of the worst fears about the tariffs. Now that the tariff, uh, and the trade war seems to be de-escalating, is that it for the gold run?I don't think so. Um, I have some very strong feelings about gold, and really if you go back to quote unquote liberation day, gold fell, it didn't rise.And part of that is because the idea that it's going to put the Fed in sort of a trick box as to what they have to do. We have to remember that gold is not just an inflation hedge. As a matter of fact, it's a pretty poor inflation hedge if the Fed is actively raising rates trying to fight inflation. No one is going to say that the Fed is going to raise rates before they cut them, at least not at this point.So if you're looking at a situation where the Fed is leaning toward cutting rates, and many people think that CPI data this morning was actually opening the door for rate cuts to happen sooner and possibly for the Fed to be more aggressive if they were to choose that path, that's pretty supportive for.Gold Gold always reacts to the sort of two or three headed monster theory that I have about it. It's not just an inflation edge, it's an asset. And if the Fed's going to be cutting rates to try and drive assets higher or help the economy, gold is likely to benefit from that.
So, so for the traders watching, Bob, at home right now, walk us through what are the levels I should be watching.
Well, gold had an inside range day today, which normally is a reversal pattern, and that would be reversing the last 3 out of 3 out of the last 4 down days if it were to be a reversal pattern. But it happened at a strange place in the recent price action. So I don't think that that's going to be very reliable at all, excuse me, reliable at all. But if you get a daily close below the low that happened on May 1st, it's right around 30 to 10 or so.You could get a move down to about 2900. If you get that. That's pretty big uh load up and buy and hold it for the next 3 to 4 years for me.So when you talk about loading it up and buying, what do you think is the best way for people to do it? Do you do it through futures? Do you do GLD? Do you look at the minors? What do you think is most attractive?So first I want to say don't look at the miners. Um, you can see several times during this gold run where miners just didn't perform. There's too many other things if you're looking at gold, and like I always say in reference to crude oil and oil companies or gold and gold miners, if you're looking for a move in gold, guess what's 100% correlated to gold? It's gold.So if you're not able to trade futures, you should be looking at GLD. Futures would be the most effective place. But I think the physical is really the play here, and I really do think that. I was actually looking back, and it was on Yahoo in 2023, when I said that I think people should be loading up on physical gold for the next 2 to 5 years. Now,I guess since that was 2023, it becomes the next year to 3 years. I don't know if I'm doing my math right, and I think it's going to stay that way. I think gold should become a much larger part of people's longer term portfolio, as well as trading it, but trading it, I'd be trading it in the
futures. What do we see, Bob, in terms of fund flows? Any, any line of sight there?
Yeah, it's interesting when you look at fund flows, people are not, I shouldn't say people. Institutions are actually not long gold very much at all. According to the last CFTC market report, it's added actually about a 5-year low in terms of gold holdings, yet the price doesn't reflect that. And I think that reflects central bank holdings which are not, um.Presented in the CFTTC numbers. So if you see central banks continuing to buy gold as sort of a, a piece of protection against maybe some sort of uh predatory responses from the US in terms of their dominance with the US dollar, and you see individuals buying gold, whether it be because of tariff-driven inflation or whether it beBecause of what they saw happen when the government gets involved like they did in Canada in personal finances. Uh, you see those same people buying Bitcoin because they sort of want to be off the grid. Gold is really the ideal holding for that. So the fact that the institutions are not very long gold according again to the CFTC figures, that could be a pretty big tailwind if it were to kick in. Bob, good to see you. Thanks so much. Good to see you guys.Now time for some of today's trending Tiger sponsored by TC Trade. We're taking a look at some of the moves in the solar sector, as well as the latest from Super Microcomputer and Archer Aviation. For solar and Sunrun, among those getting a boost today after the early drafts of a Republican tax and spending bill weren't as bad for renewables as some feared. Plug power is sinking as the lawmakers also proposed eliminating a production tax credit for hydrogen, which is what plug power produces here. Um, I like the.from Julian Dumoulin Smith over at Jeffrey's. He said the big beautiful draft bill more scalpel than sledgehammer in terms of how it's going to affect some of these solar companies that it won't be as aggressive or an elimination of everything that was helping the industry and not right away. There are some sort of phaseouts that are happening,
John. Yes, I did see analysts at JPMorgan cited as saying US budget reconciliation bill better than the more bullish end of.Expectations for solar, wind and geothermal companies. They say first solar, best positioned name to benefit from the bill. Our take is a clear positive against very low expectations, though they say we caution that the bill is merely the first step in the process, um, and potential changes are still possible as it navigates broader
Congress. And as for plug power, it does look like that analysts are viewing that as a more straightforward negative because they're just getting rid of the hydrogen credit in.Entirely, uh, we should mention also these renewable energy companies have really been shellacked because of concerns over what this was going to, what this new administration was gonna mean for them. So some of this coming on the
back of. Yeah, I saw a number of names we're moving higher today Sunrun, Shoals, Ray Technologies, uh, ETFs like Globalex Solar only higher. Alright. Super microcomputer shares, they're jumping after Raymond James initiates coverage on the stock with an outperformed, so they are believed.Company emerging as a market leader in AI optimized infrastructure, they say that it's positioned in a sweet spot between branded IT suppliers and contract manufacturers. Companies jumped into the lead with 9% of AI platform market, 31% share among branded suppliers.
Yeah, exactly. They do, you know, they do talk about call out some risks potentially. They say there is lumpiness that affects the business and the valuation.They call out the negative pre-announcement that we got from Super Micro recently. However, they're looking at the sort of bigger picture here of the infrastructure build out and saying the company is going to benefit fromthat.
Yeah, and on tariff risks and trade tensions, they say yes, that's an overhang for the subsector. Super Micro's largest facility they point out is in Taiwan and others in Malaysia, but unlike competitors, they told clients, it does have a substantial US footprint.
And let's take a look at Archer Aviation flying high today. The company announced it's getting close to entering commercial service with its battery powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Archer announcing a new partnership with Pallanter as well. Um, so they've got a scheduled launch in the UAE, um, for later this year, and they say that that is on track. The company, by the way, also came out with its numbers, but since it doesn't really operate yet, its numbers are sort of less relevant than these partners.Ships that could result in earnings down the road.
Yeah, Cantor rates this one overweight. They say continue to view the partnerships. They point out with Andro, DOD, United Airlines, Solanti as important differentiators that should help the company ramp up its commercialization efforts, increase the tam, facilitate operations and manufacturing. Their target is it looks like 13,
I guess Ithink of these as giant drones that fit people inside. Is that theElectric vehicle takeoff and landing.
Yeah, Cantor not alone. I'm just looking at most on the street like this one. Stock is a machine, by the way. It's up about 13% this year. It's up around 200% over the past 12 months. Amazing.Alright, Coinbase set to join the S&P 500 replacing Discover Financial Services, which is being acquired by Capital One. For more, we're now bringing Yahoo Finance senior markets reporter and as for ANS.
Yeah guys, and this is a company that really went from being in the crosshairs of the SEC under the Biden administration and now uh going into the S&P 500 set to start that on May 19th, uh, a poster child now for what's happening in the crypto space because this is the first company and only crypto company to be included in the S&P 50.And this is not lost on anyone in the crypto world, certainly not lost on management. Bernstein analysts also talking about this. They initiated Coinbase with a buy rating back in March and a $310 price target. And what these analysts are pointing out is this really dramatic turnaround when it comes to the company and the crypto industry, this turnaround where they're saying that.The Trump administration's aspiration to make America the crypto capital of the world will be very beneficial for Coinbase that Coinbase remains a dominant player. They've got 66% of the market, uh, talking about the uh amount of users that they have as well, uh, on their platform, uh, and even though you may have some coin-based bears that are talking about rising competition and fee pressures, the fact.That you have these initiatives within the crypto uh environment within the crypto industry under this uh under the Trump administration is really so bullish for this company. If we take a look, I've got the uh the touch screen up right now. If we take a look at where the stock is today, you're seeing that it's up 25% in today but year to date uh Coinbase is up only 4%, but remember.this stock touched all-time highs back in last year, late last year. It really soared after the Trump administration, after Trump was elected, and from the April 8th bottom, you're looking at a rally of 52% for Coinbase. I was talking earlier to David Hollerith about this, and he was just pointing out that this really gives credibility check when it comes.To crypto and the fact that you will have now your average American that is somewhat exposed if they've got an S&P 500 ETF because of that exposure, um, look, micro strategy is in the S&P 500, but remember this is micro strategy is Bitcoin. Uh, they really talk about, I mean their, their whole thing is Bitcoin, but with Coinbase you're talking about the crypto world in general.
Yeah, really interesting move. Thanks, I appreciate it.Coming up we're taking a look at the best ways to be positioned within the retail sector following the US-China trade truce. Stick around, more market domination still to come.Shares of United Health Group sinking today after announcing that Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty has stepped down from his role for personal reasons. Former CEO Stephen Hemsley will step into that position. The company also announcing it's suspending its 2025 guidance. For more on what's next for United Health, let's welcome in Whit Mayo, Leering Partners senior.Research analyst Whit, thank you so much for being here. Obviously this is a complex uh situation for the company and it's been a rough, uh, period of time for the stock, um, and the company's fundamentals. Um, what do you think Hemsley needs to do to get things back on track and how long do you think he's gonna serve in this role?
Well, they've got two primary issues here where they've got a revenue challenge within their optim business from the implementation of a new risk model change that CMS implemented starting last year. So that's a challenge to invest in some of the technology and the coding.Um, things they need to do. And second, they're seeing, uh, elevated care activity with a number of their chronic Medicare Advantage members. I think primarily the dual, um, the descent population, dual eligibles, and probably some of the special need plans. So they can reprice for this. It'll take a little bit of time. Uh, certainly, um, there's a trust and sentiment issue here that has to be resolved, and I think that's the primary reason why they made the CEO change.
Um, and when, when you talk about the optum business, I'm also curious if there is a more sort of existential threat to it and other, um, pharmacy benefit management businesses sort of politically right now because they've come under the microscope and sort of been blamed for some of the, the high pharmaceutical costs.
Yeah, we're in the midst of some additional PBM scrutiny right now. The industry usually transition fairly well through a lot of these political challenges. I'm sure they'll find a way to make an appropriate margin on it, but nonetheless, you do raise an interesting point that there is, you know, heightened government scrutiny right now.
With the company says it expects to return to growth in 2026. What do you think?
remains to be seen, and I think that's why we're seeing the stock action today. I mean to see the stock lose $70 of value today, you'd probably have to believe that there's another $5 of earnings risk next year, so.Um, the biggest challenge is again, that's the revenue issue that they have with the Optum business and whether or not they can overcome the final transition into what's known as B28. I do think that they will have the ability to grow the insurance subsidiary. The tailwinds certainly with Medicaid getting actuarially sound rates moving into 2026. They should be able to price accordingly for some of the elevated care activity utilization they're seeing with Medicare Advantage. So they have the ability to price their way through some of this.
With, um, it's my understanding you have, or at least had an outperform rating on this one. Are you still pretty optimistic or are there other insurers in the space that you think are better bets right now?
Well, I mean, I think that the, the, the stock action, while I understand it, I think is exaggerated versus what the, the actual earnings uh headwinds would probably be next year. So we do continue to have an outperform rating on it.
In terms of Helmsley, uh, what I'm just curious, I mean, is he the right man? Is he the right executive for, for this task, this challenge?
I mean he's got a tremendous track record um navigating this organization through prior cycles of, of challenge. He's been heavily engaged as an active chairman for a period of time, probably less so on the operating side. I think he is probably the best fit executive to transition into this, into this role right now.
Um, well, to just zoom out for a minute, um, I, I mentioned what's going on politically here right now, and I am curious at this moment in time, what do you think is happening from a policy perspective that is the most relevant to your coverage that investors need to be paying the most attention to?
Well, we're knee deep in reconciliation right now and so I think we're staring at what appears to be a softer landing with the outcome of the Energy and Commerce Committee's reductions to funding and cuts to providers and payers. So I think that was certainly a well-received update, um, I guess on Monday.Um, we continue to be in just an environment for Medicare Advantage where I've called it the decleansing, whether it's the Biden administration implementing a number of stealth cuts, changes to star ratings, you can't have 50% of the senior population inside of the Medicare Advantage program without expecting to see some heightened integrity around how the program operates. And I would expect even under this administration that we're going to continue to see a series of changes that may not be that easy for the plans to navigate.
Wait, great having you on the show today. Thanks so much for joining us.
Sure, Josh.
Retail stocks are on the move as investors weigh the impact of the 90 day tariff reduction from the US and China. The temporary truce companies that rely heavily on Chinese imports, especially in apparel and footwear, are seeing some relief now with the tariff clock ticking though, we're navigating how to.Play the retail sector with the Yahoo Finance playbook and joining us now is Aisha Sherman, senior analyst at Bernstein. Nisha, good to see you. So, um, let's start with that US China trade truce, Aisha. I'm sure your clients were asking you what, what that all meant for your coverage universe. What were you telling them?
Yeah, so what, what we, what we have seen leading up to this announcement was that retailers and brands were stockpiling product in China and not loading it onto ships to come into the US because the effective date of the tariff is the date in which the product boards the inbound vessel. So there were stockpiles of containers in China, not boarding ships. With this announcement we're nowto see the reverse where we're going to see a surge of imports coming into the US over the next month, month and a half, and probably even a pull forward of some of the holiday merchandise before that 90 day mark expires for fear of tariffs going back up. So, you know, a few weeks ago there were concerns of empty shelves because the imports had dropped and shipments out of China had dropped. We're now in the opposite scenario.I think there could be an inventory bullwhip effect where we get this huge surge of inventory coming in over the summer with some pull forward into a slowing demand environment so we could end up with an inventory glut in the US over the next few months.
That'sreally interesting, Anisha, and it makes me, you know, I've had lots of flashbacks to the COVID era, right, and the supply chain lumpiness and disruptions that we saw.Did retailers learn the lessons of that time? Are they, even if there's going to be that glut, are they better poised to somehow manage through it than they were, say, in 2019?
Yeah, I mean, the most recent episode of this was in 2022 when we had port blockages and freight rates going up and it was impossible to find a truck to carry inventory, so we had this shortage and then everything loosened up and there was this huge glut of inventory at that time though, demand was very strong and so that excess inventory got quickly absorbed.To the market and people bought it. What concerns me now is we're we're in an environment of demand weakness, and we could see further demand weakness if we see inflation going up. So a surge of inventory into a weak demand environment is much worse for retailers and brands because that means a race to the bottom on prices, a lot more discounting and margin pressure.
Anisha, I'm just curious, how dependent are the names in your coverage universe on China as sort of a, a key critical link in their supply chain? How would you compare and contrast where they are now versus, let's say, you know, 5 years ago or 10 years ago in Asia? How has it evolved and changed?
Yeah, it's a good question, and the answer for almost all of the big brands and retailers has been it has come down. Big brands have been de-risking China's supply for the better part of a decade. And so it's, you know, because we've had continued issues with China, we had a round of tariffs before COVID, we had some backlash against the Chinese apparel or the US apparel.Manufacturers in 2021 and we've now had this new round of tariffs. They've been de-risking China and moving into Southeast Asia. So Vietnam is now the big market of production for apparel, for footwear, for handbags, for luxury goods, and so that's more of a risk than China. Who's still producing in China? It's more small and mid-size brands that haveYou know, almost 100% supply exposure to China and almost 100% demand exposure to the US, so it's really hard for them to escape the China-US route. And so they're the ones who have been trying to time the tariffs and stockpile inventory, and they're the ones who are going to see the glut. The big brands and retailers, the ones that in my coverage, the big public companies, have already to a large extent de-risked China exposure, and it's probably single digits or low double digits.Exposure at the most that percent of
supply. Aisha, so let's talk about some specific names that might be better positioned here. I got to say I was surprised by those tapestry numbers that we got last week. Tapestry, of course, the owner of Coach and Kate Spade, you would think would be maybe exposed, but I guess also because they're not just selling into the US, their customer base is international. They seem to hold up better. Is that going to continue to be the case? Do you continue to like that stock?
Yeah, and it's not just about global exposure. Even within the US, they are continuing to see very strong momentum. This is a story of a brand, the Coach brand, that used to be a kind of mediocre department store brand a decade ago, but through years of very good management, cutting the long tail of products, stopping doing discounting, taking control of the of the channel infrastructure, gradually raising average unit retails for 18 of the last.20 quarters under a very strong management team, they've managed to elevate this brand into being a viable luxury competitor. And so they now have the advantage of having a higher income consumer, very strong brand heat, pricing power so they can offset the impact of tariffs, and a brand that's really working in a product that's resonating. And so they're not seeing the slowdown that everybody else is seeing. So I think this is one of the winners into a continued US downturn. This would be one of the names I would, I would highlight as a top pick.
Um, another one that I guess again, the COVID supply chain disruptions conditioned me to think whenever there's supply chain issues, TJX is one of those companies that's gonna step in because TJ Maxx gets that sort of over inventory overflow, if you will. Um, so what's going on with them now and, and how are we going to see that play out?
Yeah, I totally agree. So from a demand side they have pretty broad-based demand. If there is a demand downturn and there's some trading down, they should benefit from that. If people switch from department stores into off price, that's a tailwind for them. The concern was supply, and when supply was running really low, there was a concern they wouldn't get as much of it.Now that we've seen the China tariffs cut, we're going to see the surge of supply in from China. That should be a really nice buying bonanza for TJX into the second half of the year. So I continue to like this one, both on the demand side and the supplyside.
Anisha, always great to see you and to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. While we are wrapping up today's market domination, don't go anywhere. We've got you covered with all the action following the closing bells to do for market domination over time.