Market Snapshot

River1 Asset Management
April 23, 2025

Morning Note

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Calendar

This Week – Mostly earnings and tariff macro.

Wednesday – Beige Book, 5 Fed Speakers and Global PMI, Earnings include CMG, ORLY, TXN, NOW, IBM.

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

Friday – U Michigan.

Risk On!

Trading Observations

Trump double back tracked, first on China tariff %s, then on his desire to fire Powell.
Firing Powell would have smashed the US Dollar further as we would no longer have an independent Fed, something critical to the Dollar being the world's reserve currency.
The Chinese tariff reduction shouldn’t be as surprising as 145% puts quite a few folks out of business.
What will rip? – In short, everything. More specifically, Semis and Tech will lead. The MANGMAN will recover hard. Crypto and AI plays should also do quite well. All those utilities and staples you bought wont.
A moment on TSLA – The quarter was horrible. Elon is coming back, and the market is higher against a stock that was down big already is the only logical reasoning for a rally.

Futures

DOW +776

S&P +134

Nasdaq +562

Charts/Sentiment

Was that the top in Gold?

Was that the bottom in the US Dollar?

Stocks would love a sub 4% 10-year yield –

Financials / Retail / Healthcare

Macau Casino revenues down 5% y/y. No sign of recovery in the Chinese consumer yet.

FIS – Upgraded to outperform at Oppenheimer on positive deal making.

Mike Mayo out telling folks banks are resilient to issues given they now have a $1.3T capital buffer, required by regulators. Look for regulations to push to access this in the future.

SF – NII missed, I-banking revenue beat.

Baird Fintech Earnings Preview – Potential earnings risers – V, MA, PAY….downtrodden that could surprise XYZ, CPAY, VRRM.

Technology

INTC – Announced cutting 20% of its staff in a restructuring. Long overdue for a name that’s spent Billions in Capex only to lose the semi battle to almost everyone.

TSLA – Terrible quarter as operating margins of ~2% look a lot more like GM and Ford. Revenue missed too. Stock higher on macro and “Elon is the next Thomas Edison” love.

META, AAPL – Fined 700MM Euros for breaching “tech rules”. Non-event.

MBLY – Up 5% plus on macro and an upgraded to neutral at BNPP Exane.

SAP – A good start to Software earnings as its +9%. Profitability was terrific, and 29% growth impressive. NOW is this evening.

Industrials

BA – Higher on better FCF conversion than feared. Free Cash Flow was still negative $2.3B though (on $19.5B in revenue), which should tell you how hard it is to make airplanes profitably.

LMT – Baird upgrading to outperform post print. Missile and missile defense programs across the globe have “insatiable demand”.