Latest news with #MahoneyAssetManagement
CNBC
2 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Stock futures rise after S&P 500 notches a fresh record high: Live updates
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on June 27, 2025. NYSE Stock futures rose Sunday evening as investors look to cap a stunning month for stocks. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures each added about 0.1%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 130 points, or 0.3%. The market's swift recovery this month comes as investors continue to monitor the whipsaw of global trade negotiations, which can quickly sway market sentiment and pose an ongoing threat to the strength of this rally. Still, June's surge reflects the exuberance of investors who are relieved that most of the Trump administration's most dire tariff threats haven't been implemented. This month, the S&P 500 is up 4.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has jumped nearly 6.1%. The Dow, meanwhile, has added about 3.7% month to date. U.S. equities are also coming off a fresh high on Friday, with the S&P 500 reaching a new record in more than four months after ending the session about 0.5% higher at 6,173.07 — overtaking its previous record of 6,147.43. At its low in April, the S&P 500 was down nearly 18% for the year when global trade and tariff tensions rocked the market. The Nasdaq Composite hit an all-time high and closed at a record after adding about 0.5% on Friday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 1%. Stocks on Friday had pulled back from their session highs after President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. is immediately "terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada" in response to Ottawa's decision to move forward with a digital services tax on American tech firms. But earlier in the day, stocks ran up after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said late Thursday that a framework between China and the U.S. on trade had been finalized, and that the Trump administration soon expects to reach deals with 10 major trading partners. Investors remain confident that the strength in price indicates good news for the market moving forward, particularly as opportunities to buy the dip emerge. "The bearish narratives—Middle East conflict, tariffs, soft economic data—keep getting invalidated by the price action," said Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management. "Every chance the market has had to break down has failed. Instead, it continues to do what bull markets do best: climb the wall of worry. We think this run can continue, not without volatility to the downside of course."
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
For exhausted stock market pros the choice is buy or stay home
(Bloomberg) — The stock market's stunning rebound over the last month has largely been driven by Main Street investors buying the dip in everything in sight while professional money managers ditched US stocks, spooked by mounting fears of slowing economic growth and trade war disruptions. As Trump Reshapes Housing Policy, Renters Face Rollback of Rights Is Trump's Plan to Reopen the Notorious Alcatraz Prison Realistic? What's Behind the Rise in Serious Injuries on New York City's Streets? NYC Warns of 17% Drop in Foreign Tourists Due to Trump Policies Vail to Borrow Muni Debt to Ease Ski Resort Town Housing Crunch But as the pile of cash on the sidelines keeps growing in the face of a resilient S&P 500 Index, which has soared 14% in a month since bottoming on April 8, Wall Street is debating whether, and when, to jump back in. 'This is so exhausting,' said Ken Mahoney CEO of Mahoney Asset Management. 'There's no playbook on how to trade this.' Mahoney is sitting on roughly 40% cash but has reluctantly started buying cheaper software shares. He's not alone, increasing numbers of institutional investors who were wary of the market's head-fakes based on President Donald Trump's tariff pronouncements and speculation on the Federal Reserve's interest-rate path are being dragged back in. The reason is cut-to-the-bone positioning has cleared the path for many of them to return as buyers. At this point, there's little standing in the way of short-term stock market gains as traders have lifted their bearish hedges, systematic funds are beginning to buy and retail investors are chasing everything from Big Tech to industrials. 'This is an unloved rally,' Colton Loder, managing principal of the alternative investment firm Cohalo, said by phone. 'But just based on positioning being cut so much alone, this will likely induce buying in the coming weeks no matter what trade or monetary policy news comes.' In addition, the S&P 500 Index's one-month realized volatility fell 17 points Thursday due to the index's historic 9.5% rally on April 9 coming out of the one-month calculation, according to Tier 1 Alpha. A decline in realized volatility will cause a rapid normalization in risk premium models, enabling those investors to increase their exposure. 'This isn't about taking on more risk,' Mahoney said. 'We're building up cash to use when we're forced to buy rallies like now. But we're still cautious.' The hesitation among fund managers comes as they debate when to reprice the extent to which the Fed may be able to cut rates this year. Wall Street had been expecting the central bank to cut next month, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other policymakers insist they're waiting for more clarity from economic data. 'Uncertainty is still pervasive in the economy, and business contacts tell my staff and me that they expect uncertainty to persist longer than they had anticipated earlier this year,' Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said in a blog post on Friday. 'I don't think it's prudent to adjust monetary policy with so little visibility of the path ahead.' Retail traders are the one group that seems unfazed by the Fed or Trump's trade policies. When the market sold off sharply in late February, individual investors bought while institutions rotated out of US stocks at a near-record pace. At Bank of America Corp., individual-investor clients bought stocks for 21 straight weeks through May 2, the longest buying streak in the firm's data history going back to 2008. Take Jay Rice, a 64-year-old former Wall Street broker who day trades in Cave Creek, Arizona. He's piling into Nvidia Corp. and Inc., and breaking up his big trades into smaller lots to deal with the underlying volatility. 'When turbulence creeps up like this, it's a lot harder to put on trades, but I love it,' Rice said by phone. 'The constant back-and-forth on Trump's trade threats can make things so difficult, but I'm still buying.' Commodity trading advisers, or CTAs, which take their cues from the stock market direction rather than fundamental factors, are starting to inch back to the table, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s trading desk. A historic bout of tariff-driven volatility caused them to sell for most of this year, but their equity exposure has risen slightly, although it remains low compared to readings over the past five years, according to UBS Group AG. Other equity strategies, however, remain more neutral. Waiting For Exhaustion 'You can't always chase these rallies,' warned Stephanie Lang, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Homrich Berg, who favors defensive companies like health care and utilities on improving profit outlooks. Now, Wall Street is poring over charts to find how much stocks need to rally before buyers are exhausted. JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Bram Kaplan says CTAs will turn into short-term buyers when the S&P 500 reaches 5,800, roughly 2.5% above Friday close of 5,660. The index is still 7.9% below its Feb. 19 all-time high. In March, the S&P 500 broke below its bullish trend line that began when the most recent bull market started in October 2022. To recoup that, the S&P 500 would need to cross back above 6,000, which Cohalo's Loder sees as a far more difficult hurdle to clear. And then there are market watchers like Dennis Debusschere, founder of 22V Research, who doesn't want to chase what he sees as a fading rally. Since tariffs remain a significant issue and stock market internals remain weak, his firm is pushing shorts in the riskiest corners, like small-capitalization companies. 'We're just trying to get through all of this intact,' Mahoney said. 'Anything can turn on a dime with a tweet.' —With assistance from Jan-Patrick Barnert and Alexandra Semenova. How the Lizard King Built a Reptile Empire Selling $50,000 Geckos US Border Towns Are Being Ravaged by Canada's Furious Boycott Maybe AI Slop Is Killing the Internet, After All With the New York Liberty, Clara Wu Tsai Aims for the First $1 Billion Women's Sports Franchise Pre-Tariff Car Buying Frenzy Leaves Americans With a Big Debt Problem ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
For Exhausted Stock Market Pros the Choice Is Buy or Stay Home
(Bloomberg) -- The stock market's stunning rebound over the last month has largely been driven by Main Street investors buying the dip in everything in sight while professional money managers ditched US stocks, spooked by mounting fears of slowing economic growth and trade war disruptions. As Trump Reshapes Housing Policy, Renters Face Rollback of Rights Is Trump's Plan to Reopen the Notorious Alcatraz Prison Realistic? What's Behind the Rise in Serious Injuries on New York City's Streets? NYC Warns of 17% Drop in Foreign Tourists Due to Trump Policies Vail to Borrow Muni Debt to Ease Ski Resort Town Housing Crunch But as the pile of cash on the sidelines keeps growing in the face of a resilient S&P 500 Index, which has soared 14% in a month since bottoming on April 8, Wall Street is debating whether, and when, to jump back in. 'This is so exhausting,' said Ken Mahoney CEO of Mahoney Asset Management. 'There's no playbook on how to trade this.' Mahoney is sitting on roughly 40% cash but has reluctantly started buying cheaper software shares. He's not alone, increasing numbers of institutional investors who were wary of the market's head-fakes based on President Donald Trump's tariff pronouncements and speculation on the Federal Reserve's interest-rate path are being dragged back in. The reason is cut-to-the-bone positioning has cleared the path for many of them to return as buyers. At this point, there's little standing in the way of short-term stock market gains as traders have lifted their bearish hedges, systematic funds are beginning to buy and retail investors are chasing everything from Big Tech to industrials. 'This is an unloved rally,' Colton Loder, managing principal of the alternative investment firm Cohalo, said by phone. 'But just based on positioning being cut so much alone, this will likely induce buying in the coming weeks no matter what trade or monetary policy news comes.' Volatility Plunging In addition, the S&P 500 Index's one-month realized volatility fell 17 points Thursday due to the index's historic 9.5% rally on April 9 coming out of the one-month calculation, according to Tier 1 Alpha. A decline in realized volatility will cause a rapid normalization in risk premium models, enabling those investors to increase their exposure. 'This isn't about taking on more risk,' Mahoney said. 'We're building up cash to use when we're forced to buy rallies like now. But we're still cautious.' The hesitation among fund managers comes as they debate when to reprice the extent to which the Fed may be able to cut rates this year. Wall Street had been expecting the central bank to cut next month, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other policymakers insist they're waiting for more clarity from economic data. 'Uncertainty is still pervasive in the economy, and business contacts tell my staff and me that they expect uncertainty to persist longer than they had anticipated earlier this year,' Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said in a blog post on Friday. 'I don't think it's prudent to adjust monetary policy with so little visibility of the path ahead.' 'I'm Still Buying' Retail traders are the one group that seems unfazed by the Fed or Trump's trade policies. When the market sold off sharply in late February, individual investors bought while institutions rotated out of US stocks at a near-record pace. At Bank of America Corp., individual-investor clients bought stocks for 21 straight weeks through May 2, the longest buying streak in the firm's data history going back to 2008. Take Jay Rice, a 64-year-old former Wall Street broker who day trades in Cave Creek, Arizona. He's piling into Nvidia Corp. and Inc., and breaking up his big trades into smaller lots to deal with the underlying volatility. 'When turbulence creeps up like this, it's a lot harder to put on trades, but I love it,' Rice said by phone. 'The constant back-and-forth on Trump's trade threats can make things so difficult, but I'm still buying.' Commodity trading advisers, or CTAs, which take their cues from the stock market direction rather than fundamental factors, are starting to inch back to the table, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s trading desk. A historic bout of tariff-driven volatility caused them to sell for most of this year, but their equity exposure has risen slightly, although it remains low compared to readings over the past five years, according to UBS Group AG. Other equity strategies, however, remain more neutral. Waiting For Exhaustion 'You can't always chase these rallies,' warned Stephanie Lang, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Homrich Berg, who favors defensive companies like health care and utilities on improving profit outlooks. Now, Wall Street is poring over charts to find how much stocks need to rally before buyers are exhausted. JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Bram Kaplan says CTAs will turn into short-term buyers when the S&P 500 reaches 5,800, roughly 2.5% above Friday close of 5,660. The index is still 7.9% below its Feb. 19 all-time high. In March, the S&P 500 broke below its bullish trend line that began when the most recent bull market started in October 2022. To recoup that, the S&P 500 would need to cross back above 6,000, which Cohalo's Loder sees as a far more difficult hurdle to clear. And then there are market watchers like Dennis Debusschere, founder of 22V Research, who doesn't want to chase what he sees as a fading rally. Since tariffs remain a significant issue and stock market internals remain weak, his firm is pushing shorts in the riskiest corners, like small-capitalization companies. 'We're just trying to get through all of this intact,' Mahoney said. 'Anything can turn on a dime with a tweet.' --With assistance from Jan-Patrick Barnert and Alexandra Semenova. How the Lizard King Built a Reptile Empire Selling $50,000 Geckos US Border Towns Are Being Ravaged by Canada's Furious Boycott Maybe AI Slop Is Killing the Internet, After All With the New York Liberty, Clara Wu Tsai Aims for the First $1 Billion Women's Sports Franchise Pre-Tariff Car Buying Frenzy Leaves Americans With a Big Debt Problem ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Axios
05-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Trump's tariffs are a nightmare for companies big and small
When everything gets more expensive everywhere because of tariffs, that starts a cycle for businesses, too — one that might end with layoffs, bankruptcies, and higher prices for the survivors' customers. Why it matters: The cycle is just starting now, but the pain is immediate. From clothing retailers who get all of their production from heavily tariffed Asian countries, to bakers whose pastries depend on newly levied imported vanilla, to the tech companies whose batteries need the minerals China just cut off in retaliation, this weekend will be a scramble to figure out how to survive the new world order. The big picture: The stock market is not the economy, but if you want a decent proxy for Main Street businesses, look at the Russell 2000, a broad measure of the stock market's small companies across industries. It's down almost 20% this year alone. That in and of itself doesn't make a business turn the lights off, but it says something about public confidence in their prospects. "The market is like a real time poll ... this is going to impact all businesses in one way or another undoubtedly," Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management wrote Friday. Zoom out: The early signs are everywhere, large and small. Electronics trade group IPC estimates the cost of critical components coming from overseas will rise 30% to 50%. Even if you're already manufacturing domestically, the parts you need from somewhere will get expensive, quickly. Automaker Stellantis paused production at multiple factories and laid off hundreds of people. Irrigation company Lindsay Corp. said the tariffs would increase its cost of goods, which it would pass through to customers. Those customers are farmers, who are now getting squeezed by foreign retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. It's only April, but already Christmas is getting complicated, too. Forty-eight hours after announcing a pre-order date for its new video game console, Nintendo had to cancel it. Turns out there's now massive tariffs on the countries where it's manufactured.
Reuters
31-03-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
Tesla deliveries likely fell as competition, Musk backlash surge
March 31 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab investors are bracing for a drop in first-quarter vehicle deliveries as a backlash against CEO Elon Musk 's politics exacerbates weakening demand for the electric vehicle maker's aging lineup. Musk promised Tesla would return to growth this year after its annual deliveries fell for the first time in 2024, and Wall Street will be watching to see how a refreshed Model Y SUV and incentives made a difference. Tesla has been grappling with rising competition, especially in China and Europe, and protests against Musk's role overseeing cuts to federal spending as an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. This has angered a largely liberal base of Tesla buyers, and data has shown Tesla owners trading in their vehicles at record levels. "We have seen major brand deterioration of Tesla across the entire world essentially," said Ken Mahoney, CEO at Mahoney Asset Management, which owns Tesla stock. "The brand has become far more politicized than any public company's brand should wish to be." Tesla is set to report its first-quarter deliveries and production numbers on Wednesday. Its shares were down about 4% in premarket trading on Monday and have fallen 35% this year. Wall Street expects Tesla to have delivered about 373,000 vehicles in the January-March period, according to an average of 15 analysts' estimates from Visible Alpha that were refreshed in the past 30 days to reflect growing demand concerns. That would be a 3.6% drop from the same period a year ago, when it delivered 386,810 vehicles. Even the updated average estimate may be too optimistic, according to some investors and analysts. "I think that the numbers are going to come in below 400,000 and, maybe as low as 350,000," said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Tesla shareholder Globalt Investments. Deutsche Bank analysts expect between 340,000 and 350,000 vehicles to have been delivered. The company and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Data from auto associations and analyst estimates has shown sharp drops in Tesla sales in the first two months of the year in the U.S., Europe, and China. Adding to the malaise about the economy that has curbed people's appetite for big-ticket purchases, demand for Tesla cars has also been hit as some potential customers waited for a refreshed version of the top-selling Model Y. Tesla started selling the updated Model Y, which now comes with full-width front and tail lights, a rear-seat touchscreen, and improved interiors, late last month in China and this month in the U.S. and Europe. "The refreshed Model Y could boost demand, but it may be prolonged a bit as many customers could be waiting for the launch of a more affordable vehicle," said David Wagner, head of equity and portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. Tesla has said it would launch a more affordable model based on existing platforms this year but has not offered details. Demand for Tesla's Cybertruck pickup that rolled out in late 2023 after several delays has also been cool, with its polarizing trapezoidal design and higher-than-promised price tag keeping buyers at bay. Quality concerns have plagued the model, and Tesla recalled, opens new tab nearly all Cybertrucks in the U.S. this month to fix an exterior panel that could detach while driving. TESLA TAKEDOWN The company has been offering discounts and other incentives, including low-cost financing. But these seemed to have had little impact in Europe, where sales declined in the first two months of the year. People have been turned off by Musk's support of right-wing politics. Sales of China-made Teslas fell as well. Chinese rivals including BYD ( opens new tab, ( opens new tab have ramped up a price war and launched at least six models in the past year to take on the Model Y. "Tesla Takedown" protests in countries including Germany and Finland have amplified criticism against Musk in the U.S., where he has been instrumental in driving reductions in the federal workforce and the termination of humanitarian initiatives. Teslas have been lit on fire in Las Vegas, and incidents of vandalism at Tesla stores have spiked. Trump has said perpetrating violence against Tesla dealerships will be labeled domestic terrorism. Tesla is likely to be less affected than rivals by Trump's latest 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and parts. Tesla brings in fewer parts than other automakers from outside the U.S. and makes domestically all cars it sells in the U.S. Still, Musk has said the cost impact from tariffs will not be trivial. Tesla has also warned it is exposed to retaliatory tariffs that could be leveled in response to Trump's levies.
