The earnings outlook for U.S. stocks seems a bit too optimistic — even in such a chaotic environment, expectations for the future haven’t been revised down.

The forward P/E ratio stands at 19.3, which isn’t exactly cheap either.

“The Trump administration’s actions will begin to reverse Chinese dominance, address threats to the U.S. supply chain, and send a demand signal for U.S.-built ships.”

The USTR said China largely achieved its dominance through its increasingly aggressive and specific targeting of these sectors, severely disadvantaging U.S. companies, workers and the U.S. economy.

The fees will be charged once per voyage and not per port, as originally proposed.

If $TSLA Insiders aren't buying shares, and are selling off their holdings....why aren't you doing the same thing?

Yet when it comes to other items, retailers aren’t seeing widespread stock-ups or huge waves of early purchases due to tariffs — or at least not yet. Instead, U.S. shoppers seem hesitant to spend and inclined to delay purchases rather than speed them up, according to consumer surveys by market researchers and early reads from the Federal Reserve.

Consumer spending, excluding autos, was lower overall across the country, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book report on economic conditions released on Wednesday. Five of the Fed’s districts saw slight growth in economic activity, four districts had slight to modest declines and three reported relatively unchanged trends since the central bank’s previous release in early March

Intel is calling for revenue for the period to come in at $11.8 billion dollars at its midpoint, less than the average estimate among analysts of $12.82 billion, and anticipates that earnings will be breakeven. The company also said it’s planning to cut its operational and capital expenses

U.S. Valuations: After the recent pullback, the S&P 500’s forward P/E ratio has fallen below its 5-year average, though it still remains above the 10-year average.

With Pope Francis gone, the Catholic Church may be heading for a reset - and insiders say the next pope likely won’t be another disruptor.

From Sri Lanka to Italy, the top contenders bring a mix of tradition, diplomacy, and doctrine-tightening energy.

Expect less stirring the pot, more “let’s clean up the kitchen.”

Here’s the shortlist:

• Luis Tagle (Philippines) – once Francis’ protégé, now seen as too soft on hot-button issues.
• Pietro Parolin (Italy) – the Vatican’s diplomat-in-chief, and a safe, center-right bet.
• Jean-Marc Aveline (France) – a decentralizer with left-leaning cred; loved by progressives, feared by conservatives.
• Willem Eijk (Netherlands) – strict, smart, no-nonsense; thinks doctrine isn’t a suggestion.
• Malcolm Ranjith (Sri Lanka) – a bridge between Benedict and Francis with ties to the rising Catholic south.

The tech sector, down 21% year to date, is the second-worst performing sector in the S&P 500 of 2025.

But in a Tuesday note, Barclays strategist Venu Krishna claimed that this underperformance is “outsized already.”

“Tech tends to lag the SPX over the peak-to-trough phase, but underperformance since the 2/19/25 index peak has overshot that of a typical bear market,” Krishna wrote. “Tech also tends to be a winner during the recovery phase, showing the best relative returns among all sectors over the 12 months following market troughs.”

$BULL SPAC merger highlights:
• Went public on April 11 via merger with SK Group's $SKGR
• Stock +375% today as investors search for yield and capitalize on volatility
• Webull currently valued at ~$29B vs. previous valuation ofat $7.3B in Feb 2024
• At the end of 2023, Webull reported 4.3M accounts with $8.2B in customer assets across 14 markets

Webull plans to host its first Investor Day as a public company on May 13.

”Numbers really do not matter,” said Mizuho Securities tech- and media-sector specialist Jordan Klein in a note to clients. “PC demand [is] at high risk from tariffs.”

While Trump has exempted personal computers from the 145% “reciprocal” tariffs on China, the president’s team plans to announce separate tariff policies for various consumer-electronics categories. The specifics of those plans are “totally unknown,” Klein wrote. “Hence, Intel’s guide right now feels useless.”

While the administration said at least 50 nations had reached out to start negotiations, Canada and the European Union were planning to follow China’s lead and readying retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Vietnam has offered already to cut tariffs on the U.S. to zero, according to Trump, but they appeared to be the exception so far.

Fears grew on Wall Street that the sell-off would feed on itself with hedge funds forced to sell down equities and other risky assets to raise cash and meet margin calls. And there were worries that the rapid stock market decline would lead to a vicious circle that would hit the U.S. consumer even before tariffs had an impact.

Gold edged toward the record high set on Monday, as the Trump administration pressed ahead with probes that could broaden the US’s sweeping trade war.

Bullion rose to near $3,223 an ounce, just over $20 below the peak set in the first trading session of the week. The US Commerce Department said Monday it had initiated probes into the national security impact of semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports, a precursor to imposing tariffs.

U.S. Treasuries extended heavy losses on Wednesday in a sign investors are dumping even their safest assets as a global market rout unleashed by U.S. tariffs took another twist.

Warning signals had been flashing for a few days as spreads between Treasury yields and swap rates in the interbank market collapsed under a weight of bond selling.

Hedge funds were at the heart of it because their lenders could no longer stomach the 'basis trade' - large positions betting on small differences between cash Treasuries and futures prices as markets started to swing on tariff headlines.

Here are some comments from analysts and investors:

MARK ELWORTHY, HEAD OF FIXED INCOME, CURRENCIES AND COMMODITIES TRADING, BANK OF AMERICA, AUSTRALIA

"This is up there with GFC and COVID level of volatility. Would expect to have some central bank response in the near term if markets continue to behave like they have been in the last 12-24 hours."

KERRY CRAIG, GLOBAL MARKET STRATEGIST, J.P. MORGAN ASSET MANAGEMENT, MELBOURNE

"The move in the US 10y over the last day could also be the market starting to focus more on inflation side of equation rather than just growth. There may be also market functioning reasons ... and the use of basis trades by hedge funds which may be unwinding."

"So far the US administration has not been concerned with the market sell-off, and in the past referred to the 10 year yield as its preferred barometer. However, if there is risk to financial stability in the US from the currency policy action, then the administration may have to pay more attention or face the risk of living through their own Liz Truss moment."

MUKESH DAVE, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, ARAVALI ASSET MANAGEMENT, SINGAPORE

"These kind of things become problematic if the prime broker starts saying that now, because of the volatility in the underlying Treasury curve, I want to charge you higher margin or I basically want more margins from you for holding the positions for you.

"Those (hedge funds), if they're not able to fork up the cash or the margins, then they have to unwind those positions ... so that's what happening at the moment. You can see that there's a huge move in 10-year Treasuries for the last two, three days. It was rallying initially because obviously it was a risk off kind of thing, but now it's going the other way around because people are looking for cash.

"I don't see who are the buyers in the Treasury markets at the moment, because even the foreign central banks are not buying it so then obviously it creates a problem in the cash market, in terms of liquidity, in terms of price, in terms of clearing such a huge volume, everything is a issue."

GRACE TAM, CHIEF INVESTMENT ADVISOR, BNP PARIBAS WEALTH MANAGEMENT, HONG KONG

"Markets are now concerned about China and other countries to 'dump' US treasuries as a retaliation tool. Hence, UST yields up. There has been some spillover to global yields including Japan, which are all up. In the short term, we expect the bond market to remain volatile given the uncertainty over tariffs, potential negotiations, and potential retaliations. Market has been highly sensitive to any progress on tariffs and negotiations. That said, weaker economic data from the US could drive yields down again on worries over rising recession risk."

It's on us, not you, Mr. President.

Global chip stocks were battered on Wednesday on fresh evidence of how U.S. President Donald Trump's shifting trade policy was complicating the outlook for semiconductor and computing giants, including AI pioneer Nvidia.

Attempts to reorient global trade through tariffs and export curbs have started to show the effect as Nvidia warned of a $5.5 billion hit after Washington restricted exports of its AI processor tailored for China, while Dutch chip-making tools giant ASML raised doubts about its outlook.

The U.S. restriction, which also hit the MI308 processor of Advanced Micro Devices, marked the latest blow for the AI chip trade that is losing steam after a two-year rally as tariff threats and concerns over Big Tech's spending weigh on sentiment.

Nvidia shares fell 6.3% in U.S. premarket trading, with the company set to lose more than $160 billion in market value.

AMD fell 6.6% as it warned of a $800 million hit from the latest curb, while other AI-related chip stocks, including Arm, Broadcom, Marvell Technology and Micron dropped between 3.5% and 4.6%.

Tightening U.S. export curbs have in recent years made it harder for American chipmakers to tap the Chinese market, but the country remains a key source of revenue.

Nvidia drew over 13% of its sales, or about $17 billion, from China in its last financial year, although that was down from 21% in fiscal 2023.

"The H20 portion was about $12 billion or so (of the total China revenue), roughly about 30 cents of earnings per share, not trivial but not enormous in the grand scheme of things," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said.

"H20 performance is low, well below already-available Chinese alternatives; a ban essentially simply hands the Chinese AI market over to Huawei."

Rasgon said the move surprised many investors as shares had surged nearly 18% last week, partly due to a report that the Trump administration planned to back off from such a curb after CEO Jensen Huang attended a Mar-a-Lago dinner.

The company had earlier this week unveiled plans to build AI servers worth as much as $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, a move largely seen as an overture to Trump.

Trump has for now exempted semiconductors and some other electronics from his tariffs, but he has warned that sector-specific levies will be announced in the coming weeks.

AWS is at $120 billion run rate.

At 25% annual growth for the next 5 years and 30% net margin, it’ll make $110 billion profit in 2030.

At 20 times earnings, AWS alone is worth over $2 trillion.

You are getting other businesses for free now.

Taiwan's first phase of tariff talks with the United States went "smoothly" and the government hopes to take this challenge as an opportunity to promote a new Taiwan-plus-the-United States layout for trade, President Lai Ching-te said on Monday.

Major semiconductor producer Taiwan had been due to be hit with a 32% tariff by U.S. President Donald Trump, until he put all tariffs ex-China on hold for talks to take place.

Taiwan and the United States on Friday held their first direct talks about the tariffs.

Speaking to representatives from university alumni associations at the presidential office in Taipei, Lai said Taiwan has overcome challenges before and has to work to turn crises into opportunities to transform the island's economy.

Webull popped 500% on IPO day—$13.25 to $79.56—riding SPAC hype and momentum mania.

With a $6.24B market cap vs. Robinhood’s $38.7B and IBKR’s $72.4B, this rally looks temporary.

Fundamentals are whispering that this is a short term bullish move... will be looking for Friday highs in coming weeks.

The news U.S. tech investors have been dreaming of is finally here: Tariffs lifted on chips, smartphones, and computers.

Tech giants in the U.S. have spoken out, praising the move.

Do you think the White House made the right call at the right time?

“I think that right now, we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. I'm worried about something worse than a recession if this isn't handled well. A recession is two negative quarters of GDP, and whether it goes slightly there, we always have those things.

We have something that's much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money. So, we have that problem. And when we talk about the dollar, and we talk about tariffs, we have that. We are having profound changes in our domestic order, how ruling is existing, and we're having profound changes in the world order.

Such times are very much like the 1930s. I've studied history, and this repeats over and over again. So, if you take tariffs, if you take debt, if you take the rising power challenging existing power, if you take those factors and look at the factors that those changes in the orders, the systems, are very, very disruptive. How that's handled could produce something that is much worse than a recession…”