Is now truly the most exciting time to be an investor? tastylive Founder and CEO Tom Sosnoff joins Yahoo Finance in-studio to weigh in on the retail investor environment, gauging commodity price trends forming around gold futures (GC=F), the crypto space, and expectations for the first-quarter earnings season.

"The last earnings cycle surprised I think everybody to the upside. Every earnings cycle is incredibly random. When you break down the numbers afterward, you're essentially talking 50-50," Sosnoff explains, expecting surprises "to the downside" this earnings season.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

JARED BLIKRE: So you have a unique perspective on the markets because you're in the brokerage industry. I'm just wondering what kind of retail trends you've seen change over the years. Anything that sticks out to you? Because you get to see the order flow of your own customers. How are things different than they were a few years ago?

TOM SOSNOFF: Well, I have actually-- I come from the market making side. So I spent half of my career 20 years as a market maker. And then the last 23 or 24 years building front-end software. For retail investors, we built ThinkOrSwim then Tasty.

And so what I've really watched investors do has become very capital efficient. Like the swing has been towards capital efficiency. So they use a different kind of the technology is so much better today. And they use a different set of products.

So they're more open to being product agnostic. I think if you ask people 10 years ago or 20 years ago, what do you do as an investor or trader? They'd tell you I trade stocks. I trade options. I trade futures.

Today, everybody is agnostic to everything. So it doesn't matter what you do. Like product indifferent we like to call it.

So I think today's retail investor is just as happy trading gold today or crude oil because they were in play as they are trading in NVIDIA or AMD.

JARED BLIKRE: Interesting.

TOM SOSNOFF: And so I think that is the biggest shift in the last really in the last two decades is the move towards product indifference and the move towards a little bit more towards strategy and a little bit away from, hey, I think I know what's going to happen next.

JOSH LIPTON: And Tom, you mentioned gold there. That's another big story. It hit another fresh record, right? What do you think gold is trying to tell us?

TOM SOSNOFF: Well, first of all, gold had an amazing turnaround today. It was up almost I think $65. I mean, I was flying out here today.

But I think it was up $65 this morning. Now, it's down almost 20. So it's had almost probably one of the biggest one day reversals it's had in years.

But gold is an interesting. First of all, commodities are different than stocks. So stocks there's natural sellers. Because in the stock market, people are long.

And at some point, it gets rich enough where they want to sell. But in the commodity world, it doesn't actually work like that. People aren't necessarily just long gold looking for a place to exit.

So it's much more of like a commodity trade is a little different. It's more trendy. And I think that this gold trade has been. I don't consider it as much a flight to quality as I do think it's just we've been looking for places to put cash because every asset has been appreciating.

And it's really more of just, hey, spreading the wealth around. So digital assets over here, gold over here, crude oil over here. Basically, anything that you can get your hands on that's not correlated to equities is an interesting investment.

JARED BLIKRE: What about crypto?

TOM SOSNOFF: I feel the same way about crypto I think crypto is-- I can't comment on whether I think it's expensive or cheap. It's obviously not cheap.

But I think crypto is the same kind of investment. Not having crypto in a portfolio is way more dangerous than having crypto in a portfolio. Like the alpha, you get from crypto and the amount of non-correlation and that high volatility, which means it has high expected move, crypto should be in everybody's portfolio.

But just it doesn't have to be huge. It could be 1%. It could be half a percent, could be 3%. But I think some commitment to digital assets and to that technology is really important for every investor.

JOSH LIPTON: Earnings season, Tom. Let me get you out of here on this. What do you think? And what's the setup look like?

TOM SOSNOFF: Well, we've only had a couple of stocks so far. It's just been two days or something. And the last earnings cycle surprised, I think, everybody to the upside.

And every earnings cycle is very incredibly random. I mean, when you break down the numbers afterwards, you're essentially talking 50/50. But I think this one, last earnings cycle, there really wasn't. But one or two downside surprises.

And given the level that this market's at right now. Like JP Morgan's a perfect example. That wasn't that bad a number.

But they kind of crushed the stock today. And I know the market's down. But I think that if there's going to be surprises this time around, it'll be to the downside.

The numbers will come out 50/50. Like half of them will be up half will be down. But the surprises last time were all to the upside. I think the surprises this time will be the downside.