Morning Note

Calendar

This Week – Mostly earnings and tariff macro.

Tuesday – 6 Fed Speakers

Wednesday – 5 Fed Speakers and Global PMI

Thursday- Durable Goods, Continue Claims, Existing Home Sales.

Friday – U Michigan.

Trading Observations

• No trade deals a weight

• 5500 resistance vs. 5000 support

• Unless the $SPX goes up ~6.40% in the last 8 trading days of April, the index will close red for the 3rd straight month in a row, and hasn''t gone 4 since 2011

• If a true bear market https://tinyurl.com/2vcmemzb [tinyurl.com]

• Trucking starting to feel it? https://tinyurl.com/3uhyxzy3 [tinyurl.com]

• Housing continues to roll over https://tinyurl.com/4hxj38ah [tinyurl.com] 

• For the bulls, breadth thrust at least on the table https://tinyurl.com/4fcttfh8 [tinyurl.com] 

• Washout? https://tinyurl.com/3f47xwr4 [tinyurl.com] 

• Valuations in the realm of reasonable https://tinyurl.com/ta5k8wup [tinyurl.com]

• Jobless claims not yet problematic https://tinyurl.com/3jkt87w2 [tinyurl.com] 

Futures

DOW -360

S&P -62

Nasdaq -283

Charts/Sentiment

Financials / Retail / Healthcare

CCAR Stress Test Changes were out for banks Friday – GS saying stress buffers on the new rules should be 20 bps lower, creating $17B in new lendable capital and 1% EPS upside.

COF,DFS – Has received final regulatory approval to merge. COF +5%, DFS +8%.

Baird out talking specific regions on regional banking – Ohio showed solid loan growth and strong PPNR trends. No credit issues. Southeast banks missed on deposit betas, but offset the misses with expense management.

CMA – Average loans down 1-2% vs flat prior guidance. Deposits and NII look flat for 2025 too. Fee income to the rescue.

BX – GS saying robust fundraising leading to 10-11% growth in 2025.

FIS – Two upgrades post WP buy and selloff.

FI: A bill approved Thursday by the Washington House of Representatives has the potential to end a dispute between the state’s revenue department and the credit card processing giant over taxation of transaction fees

LLY: plans to manufacture its new weight-loss pill in the US for patients around the world as President Donald Trump presses companies to move production back to American shores.

Drug development: a WSJ article warned that the drug development process is already slowing down because of the aggressive HHS/FDA budget cuts while Trump’s threats against Harvard and other universities represent a huge headwind for scientific research. 

LOW: Jefferies out ++ this am

Technology

AAPL: Apple's share of Chinese phone market shrank to 13.7% in Q1 from 15.6% a year, dropping it to fifth place

Big Tech: continues to face legal scrutiny in the Trump 2.0 era, with a court on Thurs ruling that Google “willfully acquired and maintained monopoly power”, a decision that comes days after the FTC proceeded with a lawsuit against Meta

CRM: mixed sell side commentary ..... Gugg upgrading to Neutral citing valuation; says "certain limiting factors for the stock continue to persist, including sluggish Agentforce traction" .... DA Davidson cuts to Underperform

GOOGL: New antitrust loss makes Google breakup more likely - The Information

NFLX: +3% collectively sigh of relief / critical how stock closes; Q2 guide for rev acceleration on a fx neutral basis bullish; 2025 guide looked very conservative; selective price increases; constructive commentary on 1P ad platform and targeting ... pushback we'd give is that the FY Oper Margin is held/sandbagged bc they do have some very big shows coming in 2H, which raise content costs and S&M spend around them

NOW: #s Wed evening; 7% implied move .... bogeys have seen from big bulge: Q4 cRPO growth ~21% ccy (guide ~20.5%), Q1 guide ~19-20%ccy (St +20.1%) and no change to the 2025 subs reve growth guide (19.5-20%ccy)

NVDA: Sliding back below $100 level (lowest close we've seen here is $94.31 back on 4/4) ... Trump admins restrictions on AI chip exports by NVDA AMD INTC to China could help turn Huawei into a global chip-making powerhouse (NYT; not much diff from prior admin

TSLA: -3.9%; has fallen 13 out of 16 weeks in '25.  Dan Ives (Wedbush TSLA Bull) calls CODE RED… saying Musk needs to leave DOGE to focus on TSLA full time – Bloomey

Industrials 

Auto headlines: (1)Auto makers emphasize their significant investments in the US as the industry attempts to convince the White House to soften its 25% industry tariff (NYT) .... (2)Auto makers face the prospect of production shutdowns as a result of China’s rare earth export controls (FT) .... (3)F (Ford) has halted shipments of a slew of auto models (including F-150 Raptors, Mustangs, Navigators, and more) from the US to China given the escalating trade war between the two countries (WSJ) ... (4)Toyota is considering making the next version of its popular RAV4 in the US in response to Trump’s tariffs (Reuters)

F: The company has stopped shipping pricey pickup trucks, SUVs and sports cars to China to avoid tariffs that have shot up in recent weeks, the latest effect on the auto sector from the Trump administration’s escalating trade war. – Bloomey

Volvo said to cut up to 800 US jobs over tariff uncertainty https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-cut-up-800-us-jobs-trumps-tariffs-bite-2025-04-18/ [reuters.com]

Latest Media

$NVDA - Nvidia +30%, 1 year return

$ NVDL - 2xNvidia +1%, 1 year return

(Why Levered ETFs are a dangerous game…3 minute watch)