Latest news with #TheWealthAlliance
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US stocks fall; S&P 500 ends six-session win streak
STORY: U.S. stocks closed lower on Tuesday, with the Dow dropping about a quarter of a percent, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each shedding more than a third of a percent. The S&P snapped six straight sessions of gains. The Dow fell after a three-session win streak and the Nasdaq slipped after climbing for the previous two sessions. Robert Conzo, CEO and managing director of The Wealth Alliance, said that while stocks are taking a breather, they should continue to climb. "Earnings growth projections for 2025 was 13%. It just got cut in half to seven. So given all that, why would anyone have any good feeling about equities? And the reason why they have feelings about it is because the hard data is incredibly strong, with CPI being at 2.3 [percent] and PCE being at 2.6 [percent]. Wage growth, very strong at 3.8 [percent]. As well as jobs at 177 [thousand], the last print. Those are strong numbers and the consumer spending at record dollars. That's strong, that's good for earnings." Stocks on the move Tuesday included Home Depot, which edged lower, reversing early gains, after the home improvement retailer reported first-quarter sales that beat Wall Street estimates. Shares of Tesla rose slightly after CEO Elon Musk said he was still committed to being CEO in five years. But every other Magnificent 7 stock fell, including Apple, Amazon and Nvidia, with the AI chip leader set to report quarterly earnings next week. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Trump promised a markets boom; 100 days in, stocks have only seen damage
DONALD Trump promised Americans a 'boom like no other' if they elected him president. But based on the stock market's performance during his first 100 days in office, it depends on what you mean by 'boom'. The action certainly has been explosive – just not in the way investors were hoping. By Apr 30, Trump will have closed out his first 100 days in office. Despite last week's rally, the S&P 500 Index is down about 8 per cent since his inauguration and on track for its worst run during a president's first 100 days since Gerald Ford in 1974, following Richard Nixon's resignation. It's a U-turn few on Wall Street saw coming after two straight years of over 20 per cent gains and what was expected to be a pro-growth agenda. Instead, markets swung wildly as Trump slapped tariffs on basically every country where US companies operate – and then suspended some, carved out exceptions for certain industries, and ratcheted up the trade war with China. The disruptions, combined with the administration's aggressive push to deport undocumented workers and its mass firings of federal employees, unnerved investors and sent the S&P 500 spinning into its seventh-fastest correction since 1929. 'It was an extreme, for-the-textbooks, systematic risk in its purest form,' said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert. 'The volatility has been wholly different from anything we have experienced in the past, and it indiscriminately spread through all sectors and asset classes like a wildfire, constantly being fuelled by random sound bites and shifting policy moves.' Traders went all in on the America First bet immediately after Trump's election victory last November, sending the S&P 500 to its best post-election gain ever. The thinking was the administration would loosen regulations and lower taxes, which would boost growth. But the president has instead focused on his tariff fight, sending markets spinning with each new announcement of levies on trade partners. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'What he was elected for was 'Make America Great Again', the 'economy will be booming',' said Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance. 'But all the trade uncertainty has actually detracted from economic growth.' Whiplash after whiplash The S&P 500 lost more than 10 per cent in two sessions earlier this month after Trump imposed the steepest US tariffs in a century on Apr 2. It then soared a week later when the administration reversed direction and delayed most of the duties for 90 days. Stocks have bounced around since then, but traders have struggled to find a direction. 'It was whiplash after whiplash after whiplash,' said Dave Lutz, macro strategist at JonesTrading and a 30-year Wall Street veteran. And Wall Street is bracing for more. Speculators just widened their net-short position on S&P 500 futures to the highest since December, according to the latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday (Apr 25). The declines in equities since Trump's inauguration on Jan 20 have been led by the consumer discretionary and information technology sectors, with footwear company Deckers Outdoor, semiconductor equipment manufacturer Teradyne and speciality chemicals producer Albemarle among the biggest losers. Other companies with struggling share prices include Elon Musk's electric-vehicle maker Tesla, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Norwegian Cruise Line. Consumer goods makers and the chip industry are grappling with the risk of higher costs from new tariffs, while travel companies are expected to feel the pinch as consumers tighten their purse strings if the economy starts struggling. 'There is irreparable damage done,' Malek said. 'Trend and momentum are extremely important in the stock market and they really reflect investor sentiment. Unfortunately these things are very hard to turn back around when they go down so fast.' Equity positioning remains near the bottom of its historical range, according to data from Deutsche Bank, whose strategists last week threw in the towel on predictions for a large advance in the S&P 500 this year. Meanwhile, Bank of America strategists warned on Friday that the conditions for a sustained stock market rebound are missing and encouraged investors to sell into the most recent rebound in US equities and the dollar. Foreign investors already got the memo and have been dumping American shares since the start of March, according to Goldman Sachs. Cloud of uncertainty There's one word money managers use to sum up Trump's trade plans and their impact on the stock market: uncertainty. 'We still don't know what it is that we are trying to achieve with Vietnam, or Canada, or Europe, and we have no idea what success looks like,' said Paul Nolte, market strategist and senior wealth manager at Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management. This lack of clarity has prompted investors to turn defensive, wary of headfakes and preferring to wait on the sidelines until there are more concrete policy details. But that's not the only risk. 'We need to get past this cloud of trade policy uncertainty as it's holding back businesses from capital expenditures and hiring plans and may also dampen consumer spending,' said Eric Sterner, chief investment officer at Apollon Wealth Management. A tariff-induced slowdown in economic activity, and the higher costs associated with it, will crimp earnings growth, according to David Lefkowitz, head of US equities at UBS' global wealth management arm. He expects profits for S&P 500 companies to be flat this year. The first-quarter earnings season is showing how corporate America is equally in the dark. Companies are withdrawing guidance, lowering earnings outlooks and resorting to unusual solutions to manage the swings. For example, United Airlines issued two sets of profit forecasts, one if everything stays stable and the other if the economy falls into a recession. 'If you look at recessions, they are started by corporations, when they stop hiring people, then start firing people, then stop spending money,' said Siebert's Malek. He's looking for opportunities in high quality growth stocks that have been beaten down, but added that he's buying cautiously. The latest Bloomberg survey of economists showed that forecasters anticipate the trade war to hit economic growth this year and next, as prices rise and consumer spending takes a hit. Jim Worden, chief investment officer of Wealth Consulting Group, is looking at healthcare, financials and consumer staples shares, as well as stocks that have been unnecessarily crushed in the sell-off. Meanwhile, James Abate, head of fundamental strategies at Horizon Investments, said the firm is picking up regional banks stocks. This is 'a bad environment for index participation, but potentially an opportunity for active managers to prove their mettle', he said. Still, Wall Street is approaching the stock market with a sense of caution. After all, who knows what the next 100 days will hold. 'We are not past the turmoil, and I don't think we can pass the turmoil anytime soon,' Wealth Alliance's Diton said. 'Trump is who he is.' BLOOMBERG
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wall Street ends sharply higher, Nvidia and Tesla rally
STORY: Wall Street's main indexes ended sharply higher on Monday, with the Dow gaining about 1.4%, the S&P 500 climbing one-and-three-quarters percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq soaring more than two-and-a-quarter percent. President Trump on Monday indicated that not all of his threatened tariffs would be imposed on April 2, a move Wall Street took as a sign of flexibility on a matter that has roiled markets for weeks. Robert Conzo is CEO and managing director of The Wealth Alliance. "Once again, more discussion about tariffs, maybe we'll pull some back, maybe some will be temporary. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. This is starting to become a little bit of an old story with these tariffs kind of coming and going. And you actually saw Fed Chairman Powell speak last week, which was pretty interesting, which I think led a little bit of, I want to say benign-to-upbeat flavor in the market. He talked about certain things related to tariffs. Number one, he used the dreaded word 'transitory,' which killed him the first time. He brought it back, meaning, 'Hey, the negative effect of these tariffs could be short lived, get charged more, they charge the consumer more - inflationary - but a one-time shot.' So that was perceived as good." Investors scooped up battered technology shares, with Nvidia rallying over 3% and Advanced Micro Devices jumping roughly 7%. Shares of Tesla surged almost 12% in its biggest one-day gain since early November, recovering some of its recent steep decline. And crypto stocks rallied with a 4% rise in bitcoin prices, with MicroStrategy surging more than 10% and Coinbase adding almost 7%. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wall Street ends higher after Zelenskiy and Trump clash
STORY: U.S. stocks ended higher after a choppy trading session on Friday, with the Dow gaining about 1.4% and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both climbing roughly 1.6%. It was a significant reversal for Wall Street's main indexes, which had turned lower after U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy clashed in an extraordinary exchange before the world's media at the White House over the war with Russia. Robert Conzo, CEO and managing director of The Wealth Alliance, said the verbal battle rattled investors already on edge about a number of economic factors, including the effect of Trump's tariffs and the direction of interest rates. "And so the name of the game here, and this was a perfect, perfect example of it, is uncertainty. People were not expecting that exchange on any level to happen like that. The fact that it does is basically how his presidency has been going ever since. Things come out in 3 seconds and changed the game. Uncertainty reigned supreme today.' Earlier in the day, a Commerce Department report showed inflation rose in January in line with expectations. However, consumer spending in January fell for the first time in nearly two years, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve's deliberations on monetary policy. Among Friday's stock moves, Dell dropped more than 4.5% after the PC maker forecast a decline in its adjusted gross margin rate for fiscal 2026. Peer HP fell nearly 7% after its quarterly profit forecasts missed expectations. And shares of Nvidia and Tesla rose almost 4% each, recovering some ground after a dismal week for both stocks.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
S&P 500 ekes out all-time closing high as Fed minutes eyed
STORY: Wall Street's main indexes ended marginally higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500, the biggest gainer, adding roughly a quarter-percentage point to eke out a record closing high. The three major indexes wobbled between red and green for much of the session. But it was a certain safe-haven asset that caught the attention of Eric Diton, president and managing director of The Wealth Alliance. "I think the most interesting part of today's market is gold. Gold is rocking and rolling, making new highs. When gold does well, it's just telling you one word: uncertainty. [FLASH] Donald Trump is a wild card. Did you know we were going to be talking about Greenland and the Panama Canal? Neither did I." Among Tuesday's stock moves, Intel jumped more than 16% after a report over the weekend said rivals Taiwan Semiconductor and Broadcom were considering potential deals that could split the chipmaker in two. Meta Platforms slid 2.8%, snapping its 20-session winning streak, the longest in the company's history. And Constellation Brands jumped 4% after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway on Friday disclosed a new stake in the beer and wine company. On Wednesday, investors will scrutinize the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's January policy meeting for clues on the path of interest rates, particularly in light of Donald Trump's potentially inflationary tariffs. Sign in to access your portfolio
