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CNBC's "Fast Money"
Looking for Clarity on Tariffs and Can Gold Keep Shining Bright? 4/1/25
00:43:48
We’re less than a day away from President Trump announcing plans for new and reciprocal tariffs. How the markets are bracing for the news. Plus gold hitting another record high during the session – can the momentum continue? And Coreweave gets a big endorsement from a tech investor, sending shares rocketing higher. Fast Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
Melissa Lee
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- [01:00]
Melissa Lee
Sipc Live from the NASDAQ markets right in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight on the clock. We're now less than 24 hours from hearing what President Trump is going to do on tariff stocks mix today. While the 10 year yield continued its move lower, has the market already priced in the worst? We'll debate that. Plus charting the semi slump. The SMH down almost 13% this year underperforming the S and P and the Nasdaq by a wide margin. What's the next move for this all important tech sector? Stick around to find out. And later, breaking down another record day for gold. Cathie Wood and Cor weaves massive turnaround and extra extra. Read all about the 2000/% two day move in Conservative News Network Newsmax. I'm Melissa Lee coming to you live from Studio B at the nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner at Fairlead Strategies. And we start off with markets bracing for the onset of the White House latest round of tariffs. President Trump expected to host an event at the Rose Garden in less than 24 hours where he will lay out his plans for the countries and products that will get that will get impacted market see sawing as investors await clarity on the levies. The S and P and Nasdaq ultimately ending the day up less than a percent while the Dow was near the flat line. For more on what we could expect tomorrow, let's bring in Megan Kisella.
- [02:20]
Megan Kisella
Megan hey Melissa, less than 24 hours out and I am told that things continue to be fluid and discussions are ongoing. Meetings, meetings continue to be held in the Oval on exactly what tomorrow's announcement will look like. I'm told they're continuing today. They will continue throughout the day tomorrow until that 4pm announcement. So we are unlikely to have any firm details until then. But I can say that all options remain on the table and they continue to consider three primary options. One would be sort of the most extreme options that blinket tariffs as high as 20% on nearly all imports. They're also talking about tiered rates of tariffs, potential buckets that countries could fall into, or they're talking about customized country by country tariffs. I'll also add to this list that the Wall Street Journal just in the last few minutes is reporting that the president is also considering a sort of lesser middle of the road option that would be a lower than 20% tariff on a smaller subset of countries. So that fits in with everything that I've been hearing in terms of all options being on the table and continuing to find some sort of a middle ground here that would satisfy the president while not sending markets reeling, at least not too much. That's the ultimate goal. I can tell you one other thing that I've learned today from talking with White House officials is something else under active discussion for tomorrow is revoking the de minimis threshold for China. Specifically. This is something President Trump tried to do back in February. It's been on pause since then. They are actively considering whether to fully revoke that exemption starting tomorrow. This is something that have implications for companies, as you know, like Sheehan and Tamu, as well as small businesses and small business platforms like Etsy. Something else to watch tomorrow is whether they fully revoke that loophole for China. And then finally, Melissa, two other details that we picked up today. One is that any tariffs being announced tomorrow are expected to be effective immediately. So no lead time for companies to get used to. This could take effect that day, potentially the next day starting to get collected. The other thing that we learned today, I asked White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt at her press briefing earlier today whether tariffs are expected to kick back in tomorrow for Canada and Mexico as planned. Remember, there had been a one month temporary exemption on those fentanyl tariffs against Canada and Mexico. I asked whether that pause was likely to be extended. She did not want to give any specifics, didn't want to get ahead of the president and his announcement tomorrow. But she said the president continues to be Concerned about fentanyl, suggesting he may think there's more work to be done from Canada and Mexico at this point. We are expecting that pause to be lifted and those tariffs to kick back in tomorrow, Melissa, alongside the reciprocal tariffs as well.
- [04:53]
Melissa Lee
All right, Megan, thank you. Megan Casella from the White House. So everything is on the table. We don't know anything right now. With that said, I'm going to ask a very unfair question of Guy Adami and that is what do you think the markets, what do you think happens tomorrow? In other words, have we priced in peak uncertainty around the tariffs and so it is to the upside tomorrow?
- [05:11]
Guy Adami
I think it's a fair question. I think the answer is yes. Now it's the third time we've traded down to sort of this 5500 level which seemingly is for every reason a bit of a line in the sand. You had the bounce yesterday, you had the bounce today. I think that's encouraging. I don't think my instinct suggests he's not going to do something more onerous than the market has believed. I think he wants to do something down the middle which will provide a bit of a relief rally. I think it's going to be short lived. I'll say this as well. I think the bond market sells off on the back of that, potentially gold. We'll see. But I think the stock market could rally on the back of that.
- [05:42]
Dan Nathan
And again, to your point about the worst case scenarios, I think what they're trying to do right now is create a scenario where there's a base case, there's a worst case and there's a case that better than expected. And so I think the market reaction, we've dealt with a lot of this volatility given the uncertainty. And I think the market might really appreciate a bit of certainty about how this goes. But I don't think that guarantees any certainty because I think that they're trying to get these other countries to the negotiating table. Right. And let's just see how they respond to, you know, these different cases. And you know, I think about this and we just heard they're going to start collecting immediately. They're not collecting from these companies, they're collecting from US Companies that are purchasing these goods from overseas. Right. And then the companies have a decision whether they want to eat the difference or raise the prices and pass it through to consumers, which might result in less sales. Right. And so you think about this. We just got done with Q1 and that's kind of baked in the cake. We saw some of the consumer data, we saw some of the business confidence data, that sort of thing. So that's going to be in Q1 earnings. The Q2 guidance could just be horrible if you think about it. The lack of clarity in even how they quantify what the consumer is going to do in response to these tariffs. So to me that's where you get back to this uncertainty. That's why you probably have 5,500 to the downside going to 5,400, maybe 5,200.
- [06:59]
Ryan McIntyre
I agree on the uncertainty. We'll have some certainty on some things, maybe. But then to the, you know, the response to that, we won't have certainty there either. So when you say markets were bracing. Yeah. Really like feeling like just waiting to get hit.
- [07:13]
Melissa Lee
Right.
- [07:14]
Ryan McIntyre
From some side or the other. And I think, you know, markets hate uncertainty more than they hate bad news. And so it doesn't feel great to, I mean yes, we'll have some news tomorrow, a lot of news tomorrow, but I think it's going to take us a while to process it. We'll see some, some, some customers or some, you know, the Home Depots of the world, they're powerful, they can negotiate prices with whoever their vendors might be. Some others can't. We'll see. I going to be difficult to implement immediately too.
- [07:44]
Melissa Lee
Right, right. The other side of the uncertainty is the 10 year yield going below 4.15% today. That was an interesting move as well, Katie. Yeah.
- [07:51]
Katie Stockton
You know we've seen yields really kind of pivot alongside the dollar and that comes with the new administration. So it was a change in trend that we didn't really anticipate. But now we have long term shifts and say the stochastic oscillator, things like that that are suggesting that we will see yields come in even further, maybe even sub four before we come out of this. And I would agree on the relief of uncertainty. The S&P 500 does have support around 5,480. The secondary support below that is about 5% below. So usually when you get that first oversold, which is what we have on a weekly bar chart of the S and P, you get a rebound short lived. I agree with that term. And the retest can be pretty severe. Take it out the recent low and that becomes your intermediate term entry.
- [08:40]
Melissa Lee
Right. The, the little bit that Megan had mentioned in terms of revoking the de minimis loophole, that's really interesting because that's what retailers have had to deal with. So I mean how can you compete against a $5 swimming suit coming from China for free shipping.
- [08:53]
Ryan McIntyre
Yeah, no, this is good for Amazon, it's good for Etsy.
- [08:57]
Melissa Lee
Target, I would call for me Target. Any sort of lower priced. Good.
- [09:01]
Dan Nathan
Yes, but there's no method to the madness. You're talking about two Chinese retailers. So there's a headline that's been going on for the last couple of weeks that considering giving, you know, some relief on tariffs to China if they help them do a deal to buy TikTok. Like just think about that. In 2017, the Trump administration were the first ones to make noise about banning TikTok. So how, like, how does that make any sense? And I think that's a big part of it. You talk about this de minimis thing. I think it's de minimis. I just don't think it matters. And I think what matters is like what are you willing to trade at the negotiating table for something that is long lasting if you're really trying to make some meaningful changes to these trade relationships in these trade imbalances. Playing tick tock, tit for tat with TikTok.
- [09:42]
Stephanie Guild
I don't know where I was at.
- [09:44]
Dan Nathan
But I mean, I could have gone.
- [09:45]
Melissa Lee
A lot of ways.
- [09:46]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, right. It just doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense.
- [09:48]
Guy Adami
See, essentially, I would submit the madness is the method. Right. I mean, I think they're just trying to do things differently and they're not really all that concerned about the uncertainty that we talk about, the fact that the market seemingly doesn't like it. I think they view that to be a negotiating tactic. You don't have to agree with it, but I think that's sort of where their head is at at this point.
- [10:06]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. In terms of the sectors that look poised for that sort of bounce. Katie, what should we look for?
- [10:13]
Katie Stockton
Usually when you get a relief rally and this would be aligned with what we're going to talk about later with the tech sector. The tech sector does exhibit upside leadership. You see the higher beta segments of the market, the higher growth and you know that that's where you get outperformance. But it should be fleeting based on what we're seeing, because we have long term topping formations in place across the board in technology, semiconductors. And to me that's what we really want to keep our, our sights on because, you know, with a brief relief rally, we should have a selling opportunity.
- [10:43]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. For a trade.
- [10:45]
Guy Adami
Well, I think.
- [10:45]
Melissa Lee
Would it, what would it be?
- [10:47]
Guy Adami
Where do we get up to? I think, listen, I'd say 58 and a quarter was sort of the number I looked at, we got up to 5800ish, I think on that recent rally, I mean, maybe we stall there, but I think again, I think these things are going to be short lived. I will tell you. And I think you remember this. Katie was on the show in the summer, I think June of last year, almost a year ago. Ish. And she talked about how her work suggested volume was going to become a thing. And that August 5th, we obviously saw it. Volatility is still a thing today and it typically lasts a lot longer than people think. So rallies are short lived. I think the downside is inevitable, but I think we rally first.
- [11:18]
Melissa Lee
Well, even with all the uncertainty around tariffs, gold hitting record high after record high. Katie, what did the technicals say about gold?
- [11:25]
Katie Stockton
You know, gold obviously has very strong positive momentum and it's across time horizons. The daily, weekly and monthly bar charts have it. So the way we feel about something like this is that it just makes sense to keep the moving averages on your side. There have been numerous overbought sell signals on the way up and the fact that they're not being confirmed or there's just a very minimal reaction to them is a testament to the momentum we're now. We've surpassed in gold. The price objectives that we can derive from the most recent breakout. It was around 30, 60 per ounce. It doesn't mean that that totally overdone. It does have us more attuned to the direction of those moving averages. And if somebody was really attuned to the short term picture, they might want to stay with that 20 day moving average. And obviously you could go longer term than that. But what's really important this year, year to date, is the outperformance from gold is notable to the extent that the ratio against The S&P 500 has broken out and it suggests that it's more sustainable. So it's very much in falling with a more volatile year with a trading range perhaps at best, if not a bear cycle.
- [12:32]
Melissa Lee
All right, for more on what is next for gold, let's bring in Ryan McIntyre. He's a senior managing partner at Sprott. Ryan, great to see you. You're seeing gold to 3200.
- [12:42]
Phil LeBeau
Yeah, we first see the resistance for gold at 3200 and if we see it break beyond that, actually we see quite a bit of upside from there. So it could be just the first step here, but wouldn't be surprised if it bounced off 3200 first.
- [12:53]
Melissa Lee
How about the miners?
- [12:55]
Phil LeBeau
The miners are interesting people. Have 100% gravitated towards gold in a physical way. But there's really been a lack of enthusiasm towards the mining stocks that mine gold, which is very interesting because typically when gold's hitting record highs, you tend to see a lot of enthusiasm for the leverage plays on gold, like gold mining equities. And you really haven't seen that to the degree we have seen in the past, which is very interesting.
- [13:18]
Guy Adami
We're at a point now where people are concerned about if they don't have it, they don't own it, right? Possessions, 9, 10 of the law, you better have it in your vault, safe, domiciled in your country, physically works in that environment. But speak to this is. I've been in the business a long time. I don't think anybody's seen anything like this. That thirst, the need for the physical gold.
- [13:38]
Phil LeBeau
You're completely right. I think people really have a visceral reaction to wanting something physical in this environment that's more certain. You know, if there's one trend that we're seeing today is people want something in an asset that's independent from other asset classes, but also independent from other institutions as well. So something that really stands alone and physical gold really does that where you don't have to depend on anyone for its outcome.
- [14:02]
Melissa Lee
I hate to say that. I mean, this sounds like a strange question because there's no obviously PE ratio for gold and it doesn't pay dividends. You know, all these different things, no cash flow. But at what point would you ever say that gold is in a bubble? Is there no circumstance under which gold.
- [14:17]
Phil LeBeau
Is a bubble at some price? For sure. I mean, you can't deny that price is a huge factor in investment returns. I mean, since gold came off the gold standard in 1971, it's annually compounded at about 8% a year. And we'd expect that to continue as money supply continues to increase. And there's very little marginal addition of gold in actual physical circulation year to year. So that's very minimal. So it's really all about, you know, money being printed effectively.
- [14:44]
Melissa Lee
So basically you answered the question concerning the miners in a way because they have to deplete, right, assets. They have to replace depleted assets eventually, and eventually inflation hits their costs, right? So they have to deal with that. So is physical gold always the answer for you?
- [15:02]
Phil LeBeau
It's to me, it's the permanent answer. Typically in a portfolio, we think that's a strategic holding that people should have at about 10% level. We also think miners can play a really good role as well. Anywhere from 0 to 5% we think based on valuations and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. So if people are really excited about gold mining companies, they were raising a ton of money. Huge valuations. Skew that towards the zero side. People were benign about them, didn't care about them more towards the 5% side. And what's interesting about gold mining companies, they get leverage to the gold price. So every 1% move in the gold price we'd expect about a 2% change in profitability and therefore share price movement. And the other part you get as well with additional gold price expansion is you actually get growth as well. And so that's growth in the reserve base, maybe growth through production expansions and so forth. That actually is organic within the firm as well.
- [15:55]
Ryan McIntyre
Did you at all in the last, I don't know, let's say year or so feel any kind of threat to gold's position from bitcoin?
- [16:04]
Phil LeBeau
We got asked that a lot and I guess our view is, you know, we never felt that, but we could feel other people feeling that. And it's really tough when bitcoin is doing well versus gold and people are saying, oh, gold isn't the hedge that it once was and all this type of thing. But I guess our view is that gold's got the track record, gold's got the unique attribute of being physical, which bitcoin does not have. And you really, it's hard or impossible to create gold out of thin air like you can with cryptocurrency. So to me it's an asset class that stands on its own.
- [16:35]
Melissa Lee
Ryan, thanks for coming by. Appreciate it. Ryan McIntyre of Sprott, here's a question. GDX or gold? With the addendum that GDX is below on the forward P E basis is below its 10 year moving average and 20 year average.
- [16:51]
Guy Adami
So I'm going to go off the charts. I mean he's here, I haven't goodbye to me yet. You know, it's physical. The outperformer here, it's a physical gold. But if you're making me choose between gld, that ETF or the miners, I'd rather be in the miners. There's a scenario where gold actually doesn't work and quickly to answer your question about bubbles, I mean every two weeks commitment of traders comes out and you can find out where speculators stand. Whether long or short, those typically are a good indicator. But with the way central banks buying gold and hoarding gold, you know, I think we're far from a bubble right here.
- [17:22]
Melissa Lee
Ubs had a recent note saying that with gold prices soaring, not a lot of analysts have increased their estimates for, for the gold miners. And so that is going to come and that'll be an upside surprise.
- [17:32]
Katie Stockton
You know, you look at the long term picture for gold miners, there's this giant triangle formation and it's already the group has lifted out of this formation and that tends to be a very positive development. We tend to recommend the same as Ryan to, to go straight to the commodity if you can, especially if you're bearish equities because even the gold miners, which will usually outperform in that environment, probably won't be entirely immune to it. Their correlation isn't quite as tight, but it is a compelling long term setup.
- [18:01]
Ryan McIntyre
I just want to say kudos to you and Tim, if you were here, you have been on this for years now.
- [18:07]
Guy Adami
Got to get something right.
- [18:09]
Dan Nathan
You know who's not on the trade is President Trump and Elon Musk. Remember in February they were talking about they don't believe that Fort Knox has all that gold. And when you think about that coming from the administration, like doesn't that make you pause a little bit?
- [18:21]
Guy Adami
What do you mean?
- [18:22]
Dan Nathan
They said it, guy. I mean these are the two most important people in the world.
- [18:25]
Guy Adami
I don't think they said that.
- [18:26]
Phil LeBeau
They did say it.
- [18:26]
Dan Nathan
I'm looking at the quote on CNBC.com right here. I'll put it in the chat.
- [18:30]
Guy Adami
Yeah, again, I mean, yeah.
- [18:33]
Dan Nathan
Must tweet it.
- [18:34]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, Corey with a monster comeback as Cathie Woods Ark Invest discloses a major stake in the newly public company will debate whether the stocks air stocks momentum can continue next. And later, auto sales revving up ahead of President Trump's tariffs. What happens when the levies go into effect? That's straight ahead.
- [18:54]
Dan Nathan
This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee right here on cnbc.
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Megan Kisella
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Melissa Lee
Who need it most.
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- [20:24]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to fast money. AI stock core weave rallying almost 42% on its third day of trading. Video backed company now significantly above its $40 IPO price. Today's move comes after Cathie Wood disclosed a stake in our ark next generation Internet ETF. That position, valued at nearly $19 million before today's open, now worth more than $26 million.
- [20:47]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, the bummer for Core Weave is that the deal was obviously mispriced if two days later it's trading at 52 and a half, they sold, you know, 37 million shares at 40. So you know, if you're an opportunistic investor like Kathy, that's great. She has a, you know, a thesis on this sort of thing. I just ment, you know, it's got a probably high short interest. We talked about this on Friday. Folks were probably looking to short this sort of thing. Options started trading today. The most active options were 25,000 of the April 17th expiration 50 strike calls. So a bunch of the May 50 strike calls also traded I think so again, I think some opportunistic traders were taking advantage of I think you probably had some real investors come in who might have been curious about the trade last week but didn't participate. And the last thing I'll just say is that, you know, you had Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan were the underwriters. There were stories around the last couple of days is they took a discounted fee, not a big fee as you normally would for an IPO of this size. You have a green shoe. This is an overallocation. I bet they ripped the thing. I bet they were probably sick of being told they didn't do a good job on the pricing and they couldn't create a book and the thing traded really poorly. So they take the green shoe and they rip it and they create a short squeeze.
- [21:52]
Ryan McIntyre
So I mean they didn't have any control over when they write the train was in motion. They had to price. There was no question they couldn't pull it. Also, it's such a, what they sold was such a small float, part of the overall float. They had to get it done at any price.
- [22:08]
Guy Adami
You know, Dan mentioned this in the call the open air valuation, that invest in softbank thing, I think that had something to do with it. I'd feel much better about all of this if in video had a similar type of day. It did not. I mean it was up today like a lot of other things, but not nearly as much as theoretically it should have been. If they were somehow trading not in tandem but somehow comparably, it didn't happen today.
- [22:29]
Melissa Lee
How many more days until you can chart this thing?
- [22:32]
Katie Stockton
Oh, I like to see six months. So we've got some time. I'm buying time.
- [22:37]
Melissa Lee
How is the trade overall?
- [22:39]
Katie Stockton
You know, people have asked me is it dead? And I would just say no, but it's out of favor. Right. So I'm quite sure that we will resume the secular uptrend at some stage here in the S&P 500. Our call is for that to happen maybe Q4 or early 2026. So we believe that the stocks will kick back in then. But in video alone, I mean the toppiness of that chart is evident really across timeframes. And while we are expecting there to a bounce, we're better sellers because the loss of momentum is pretty meaningful and pretty new.
- [23:10]
Dan Nathan
You know, it's interesting. And Deirdre Bosa, our friend from Tech check, she had an awesome and I'm being serious, go to cnbc.com and look at this video. It just came out her tech check, it's 40 minutes long. It's talking about all the innovation that's going on in the private markets markets out there and there's a really a lot of interesting stuff. So when you talk about the momentum being dried up in the public markets, it's all the infrastructure plays, right? It was the early ones and now as you get to the application layer and she goes through and she I think there's like a dozen CEOs of doing really interesting applications. That's where the excitement is. And Guy just mentioned open I just raised $40 billion with a B at a $300 billion valuation. There's a lot of that going on. So it's interesting. Unless you're a vc, I don't think there's a lot going on in this trade right now.
- [23:53]
Melissa Lee
There's a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [23:57]
Dan Nathan
Great tech spectations. After a brutal start to the year, is the tech sector gearing up for a Q2 comeback? We're going off the charts with Kate Stockton to find out. Plus a media stock's meme moment. Newsmax shares soaring again in their second trading day. Why investors are betting big on the conservative outlet next. You're watching Fast MONEY live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.
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Megan Kisella
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those.
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Dan Nathan
Who need it most.
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Megan Kisella
Together, we're building a healthier future.
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Melissa Lee
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- [25:36]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks mostly higher in the first trading day of Q2. The Dow losing just 12 points while the S and P and Nasdaq each rose less than a percent. Shake Shack jumping 3% after Loop Capital upgraded the stock to a buy analyst seeing upside to guidance thanks to ongoing sales strength. Ulta also jumping after Goldman Sachs upgraded it to a buy rating. Those analysts suggesting beauty industry trends have normalized and the company is now poised to regain market share. Meanwhile Johnson Johnson sinking almost 8% after a judge threw out the company's plan to settle thousands of talc related lawsuits through bankruptcy. It was the stock's worst day in over six years. And Hams and hers health surging as much as 14% after adding Eli Lilly Zeppbound to its weight loss drug offerings. This coming as the company phases out compounded GLP1s in line with the latest FDA guidelines. What do you think of that Ulta Call Karen.
- [26:28]
Ryan McIntyre
I like it. They do need to regain market share. The stock's not expensive here. It's not super cheap either. I am long. I do sort of subscribe also to the, you know, people that buy lipstick. Still in a down recession. Yes, in a downturn. So I like it. I like the new CEO.
- [26:44]
Guy Adami
Not cheap. Excuse me? It's not expensive at all. And you have this if you look, I mean throw up an altar chart, you'll see a major double bottom that we're sort of bouncing off now. So I think for sure Karen's right. You can get this thing back into the mid-450s.ish$80 from here and it's still pretty reasonably priced.
- [27:00]
Melissa Lee
Which chart captures your eye?
- [27:02]
Katie Stockton
You know it does have good support, 335 or so. So I think there is a potential for the double bottom and it's reacting to the oversold, which is important. You don't want to just see the oversold, you want to see that momentum shift. So compelling.
- [27:15]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, Robin Hood's read on the retail trader, the firm's head of investment strategy, joins us next with what is top of mind for individual investors and why they're starting to nibble on mega cap tech. More Fast money into.
- [27:29]
Dan Nathan
Missed a moment of fast. Catch us anytime on the Go follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
- [27:45]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to fast Monday. The NASDAQ 100 wrapped up a rough first quarter and the index is showing a key sell signal for the first time since February 2022 according to one of our traders. Katie's got more on what it could mean for the tech trade for the rest of the year. Katie, what do you see?
- [27:59]
Katie Stockton
Yeah, so NASDAQ 100 index, it's a bit of a problem for it longer term it is that first sell signal. It's the monthly MACD indicator for the technicians out there and it does show a major loss of upside momentum and it's shared by big cap tech and effectively the semiconductor sector which has shown downside leadership. So we believe that this means the NASDAQ 100 has already either entered a trading range or maybe a bear cycle and we want to navigate that just with short term entries and exits. It's the best thing we can really do to navigate through this type of environment and with the technology exhibiting downside leadership that usually is problematic. Of course from a top down perspective it really started last year, sort of mid year 2024 when we saw the peak in these ratios XLK versus the S&P 500. And notably we actually in our own ETF just kicked out XLK as a position because of that loss of long term upside momentum that just happened today. So we are really risking respectful of it. The good news is that there is a short term oversold reading that should give us a bit of a bounce with the semiconductor sector exhibiting leadership to the downside. It does tend to be a weaker tape and you can see that if there is a comparison that we present of the SMH ETF divided by the S&P 500 and then thrown up against the S and P and you'll see that the downturns in the ratio tend to proceed and be associated with downturns in the S&P 500. So we are being very respectful this shift.
- [29:33]
Guy Adami
If our crack staff and EC can put up that first chart. Because this is important, I think, and this speaks to long time, long term change of direction. I mean the first chart, I mean last time we saw this, Katie, was 2021 when we had that type of indicator, if you look. And now here we are in 2025, seemingly rolling over again. So that suggests that rallies to the earlier point in the show are going to be somewhat short lived.
- [29:58]
Katie Stockton
And on the monthly chart, those very sort of slow moving indicators eliminate a lot of the noise of the market. We've already had a lot of noise, of course, short term, but it's isolating major shifts only. So we rarely ever see whipsaws. Meaning that this could be a signal that stays with the market for months, if not years.
- [30:16]
Melissa Lee
All right. Robin is seeing a shift among retail investors who are not buying as much on market dips and are being more selective in their investments. Stephanie Guild is the head of investment strategy at Robinhood Financial. Stephanie, welcome to Fast Money. Great, great to have you here on set. Katie was just talking about technology and that has historically been a favorite among retail investors. Is it skepticism around the tech trade that have retail investors sort of backing away a little bit?
- [30:41]
Stephanie Guild
I think so. We saw when Deep Seek first got announced, we actually saw the buy the dip reaction function happen again and everyone jumped into all the different mag7 names that they like to own. But then when the tariff narrative started coming into play, you actually saw the buy the dip reaction function start to dissipate and you actually had an equal reaction of buys and sells. Recently we have started to see that change. There's definitely not as much selling, I think because markets are down. There's still a focus on Tesla because the our customer base just I think believes in the long term of all the things that Elon Musk is doing. And Nvidia was definitely on the chopping block for a while, but it started to come back. Our customers do tend to sell what appreciates and then buy into things that go down, but they've been doing it more selectively now.
- [31:29]
Dan Nathan
So the Robinhood customers, they buy low and they sell high. That's a good endorsement. How about. So you talk about they're buying less on the dips. What about hedging, you guys? Obviously options is a big product for you guys. You're seeing some of that at the highs.
- [31:42]
Stephanie Guild
Yeah, I think you definitely saw some more put buying when the markets Were when again the same time that I started seeing people the buy the dip reaction function starting to go away and buys and sells were kind of equal. We started seeing more buy put and that's not like what our customers have been doing over the last few years. I had actually been looking for also like are they buying gold? They actually did a lot last year, but not so much as much this year.
- [32:09]
Ryan McIntyre
How about what are you seeing on the margin front?
- [32:13]
Stephanie Guild
You're actually. We have really good margin rates so we actually are seeing that growing. Our rates are around the 5 to 6% mark depending on your balance. So people are using it. Not necessarily. I don't know if they're necessarily using to buy but they're, you know to buy more stocks but that they're taking advantage of the low rate.
- [32:28]
Guy Adami
Put your other hat on real quick. 62 on a price target. But things get a little dicey for you if the unemployment rate starts to move. And I think that's something you're concerned about. We get a number on Friday.
- [32:37]
Stephanie Guild
Yeah. And we got the jolts today. It was a little weaker. I think we've got the last couple of years. I think what the market has benefited from besides a huge amount of fiscal deficit spending was that there was a capex was allowed Capex growth was allowed to be greater than sales growth and companies didn't cut Right. Like they allowed their margins to shrink for growth. I think that maybe starts to change especially because companies are not sure what the future brings for their customers or for themselves.
- [33:06]
Melissa Lee
I'm wondering how has the active trader, the profile of the active trader changed over the past year or so and how has their behavior changed, especially as you're ramping up Robinhood Gold and so you're sort of diversifying your base a little bit. It may be less of the original Robinhood in the early days of sort of the meme stock trading, etc.
- [33:27]
Stephanie Guild
I think in general our customer base has stayed with us and they've aged right. Like the average age is now 35, 34. And that means that they're in a place in their life where they're mostly professionally working, making some money and starting to have families and have needs that go beyond sitting in front of a computer and Nestle trading. They're definitely still doing that. But we also have like a 4% yield on our cash and they're using that now. We have, as I said, good margin rates. So you're seeing a more diversification of needs and we are providing that for them in all facets how do you anticipate?
- [34:04]
Melissa Lee
Guy had mentioned the unemployment, the employment report that we're expecting on Friday. If there is a downturn in the economy, what historically have you seen in terms of trading activity?
- [34:14]
Stephanie Guild
We did well in 2022. Right. Like, that wasn't really economic. It was more like a rise in interest rates and the markets sold off. And that definitely dampened volumes. I think it happened across the street, not just Robinhood. So I think you have that. But I do think actually our customer base is more prepared and more understands it better. I mean, our customer base also will participate in crypto and that is couldn't be more volatile.
- [34:38]
Dan Nathan
I wanted to go there. So as you said that this customer base has aged. Are they still as interested in crypto? Because I know that this is one of the first plat platforms, I think, that offered it alongside stocks, ETFs, and.
- [34:49]
Stephanie Guild
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we definitely have as much volumes in crypto. And, you know, we're starting to see. I think the other thing we're very interested in is not just in crypto, but also in tokenization of other assets. And you see our CEO that has talked about it quite a bit.
- [35:04]
Melissa Lee
Stephanie, great to have you by. Thank you so much. Stephanie Guild of Robin Hood, what do you think?
- [35:10]
Guy Adami
I think the number on Friday is a big deal, you know, and Stephanie will be nimble enough that if it starts ticking up in a meaningful way, which I think it will, you know, she'll start to ratchet back. And I think customers are being more discerning, which is a good sign, you know, just blindly buying things on the way down or, you know, because it seemingly is cheap. So good for the Robinhood customer for sure.
- [35:30]
Dan Nathan
Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned the diversification as they're going away from just an active trading thing. And we were down. I think we did the show down there at their summit. This was back in the fall. And I think Guy and I were really surprised because we had had that mindset that this was like the YOLO GameStop, you know, like the Reddit crowd. And we met a lot of. We met a lot of Fast Money fans. Remember, during the final tr, I thought there was a mindset more towards investing than I expected. So again, I think it's interesting to hear about across all the products that they're focused on.
- [35:59]
Melissa Lee
All right, want to get all this market insight up close and personal. You can join us June 5th for the next Fast Money Live right here at the nasdaq. You'll see the show live Take part in an exclusive Q and A session and then get some one on one time with your favorite trader or two during a top shelf cocktail hour. To buy tickets, click on the QR code on your screen or go to cnbc events.com fast money will be fun. All right, coming up, the road ahead for automakers, what to expect when tariffs take effect this week and what it all means for car sales. Plus, shares of conservative news network Newsmax truly going off the charts in its second day of trading. Have the Memers, Hodlers and Diamond Hands decided to go all in on this name? We'll break it down straight ahead. You're watching Fast MONEY live from the NASDAQ Markets site in Times Square. Back right after this. Welcome back to FAST money. Recent economic data may suggest the consumer is coming under pressure, but car buyers may have been rushing to ink deals before auto tariffs go into effect. CNBC's Phil Labeoux got the latest. Phil?
- [37:02]
Karen Feinerman
Hey, Melissa. We know there was a definitely or there definitely was a surge at dealerships in the second half of March. And that's reflected in the numbers that we heard from the automakers today, most of them much better than expected, starting with General Motors seeing an increase of 16.7%. There you see Hyundai, Toyota. Ford was down 1.3%, but its F series sales up 24% in the month, in the first quarter. Clearly there was some demand in certain segments and that's reflected in the overall sales rate for the month of March. As you take a look at the annual auto sales rate, the sales rate for the month of March, 17.76 million according to Motor Intelligence. I mean, we're talking back 2018, 2019 monthly sales rate numbers. When you look at 17.76 million. Now all eyes will be focused on the delivery report that we expect to get from Tesla tomorrow morning. And the expectation is that Tesla will deliver, and this is according to Factset, 408,000 vehicles. But if you go to the street account, and a number of analysts have been lowering their expectations, it's closer to 377. There are even some suggesting that we may only see deliveries in the first quarter. And remember, these are global deliveries, Melissa, of between 350 and 360,000 vehicles. And if that were to be the case, you're going back to Q3 of 22, the last time Tesla's numbers were that low.
- [38:27]
Melissa Lee
Wow. In terms of the tariffs, Phil, I didn't realize I was reading a note. And it said that, you know, Ford, Ford, the impact on a vehicle could be several thousand dollars and that is more than the average profit that Ford makes on a vehicle, which seems to me it would have to pass on that cost to consumers.
- [38:44]
Karen Feinerman
Absolutely. And the automakers understand that if they pass these costs along to the dealers who then will pass them along to you and I, it's ultimately going to bring down demand. That mean there's very few that who think that we're going to see 16 million vehicles sold if prices go up by 3, 4, $5,000 if not more for some of the higher end models. And so as a result, most believe that if these tariffs are put in place and if they stick, you might see 2 million come off that 16 million number and you might see annual sales closer to 14 million.
- [39:19]
Ryan McIntyre
Hey Phil, it's Karen. Thanks for being on. So after that big surge in sales, how does the inventory situation look for, let's just say GM for example?
- [39:28]
Karen Feinerman
Well, it's come down a little bit, but they still had a pretty decent buildup heading into this. Karen, that said, I would suspect that if once these tariffs if they're put in place and they're not taken off and you know, this is the way it's going to be here, I would suspect that by later this month when they start announcing pricing for the month of May, that's when we really start to see things change. And by mid May is when we will start to see these higher prices coming into models that are going to be in the showroom by then.
- [39:58]
Melissa Lee
Phil, I'm wondering in terms of the inventory that is on the lot already, do you think that consumers will be charged already the tariff price for that or is it only going to be the stuff that actually tariffed?
- [40:10]
Karen Feinerman
Okay, now look, Melissa, I say no, I bet you there's going to be some kind of anecdotal report somewhere of a dealer going to write tariff on the sticker price and they're going to mark it up a couple thousand dollars. People will say something. It will be on social media. Generally speaking, what's out there right now, those prices are going to stay in place at least through the end of April, probably into the beginning of May.
- [40:36]
Melissa Lee
All right, Phil, thank you. Phil LeBeau. By the way, the GM number on inventory, I believe it was down 8% quarter on quarter. So it was a slight, as Phil mentioned, a slight decline here. Remind me the T in your tube.
- [40:51]
Guy Adami
That would be Toyota motors. You knew that. You just said it's somewhat of a rhetorical question. It wouldn't be GM because then I wouldn't be playing the game correctly.
- [40:59]
Ryan McIntyre
I think that works.
- [41:00]
Guy Adami
I know you'd be for gm, not car company. With that said, I mean I think GM trades really pretty well given the circumstances. And my instincts suggest that the president might walk back some of the things regarding like the GMs and the Ford that the market might take very favorably rally. You could see a significant bounce in those names.
- [41:18]
Katie Stockton
Yeah, I would argue, you know, you want to stay with stocks that are in long term uptrends and none of them are at present. You know Tesla is probably the most interesting though at least near term for a relief rally. There's 18% upside to its 50 day moving average. But after that I'd sort of watch out because again those retests can be pretty nasty.
- [41:36]
Melissa Lee
Deliveries expected before the bell tomorrow. Dan?
- [41:39]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, we've been talking about this now for two weeks and we've been basically was saying they're going to be horrible. Right. And so the consensus for deliveries have been coming down and we've also been saying it's a really hard press on the short side when you have so much negative news sometimes you'll see this kind of reaction. I guess what's interesting to me is like what's the reaction going to be if they're like slightly better? I suspect, I know there's not a channel. I suspect they're trying to push out as many cars as possible right into quarter end. They do it every quarter and then how does it act into the print? We know that margins are going to be weak. They've been buying down rates, that sort of thing. So again this one headlines just should not be that interesting Unless you are so focused on robots and Robotaxi and full self driving because otherwise their car business is in the.
- [42:17]
Melissa Lee
You know what, Coming up, newsmax soaring over 2000% since it started trading yesterday. Yeah, you heard that right yesterday. The details on conservative media companies insane surge next. And here's a sneak peek at the Kramer Cam. Jim is chatting exclusively with the CEO of GoDaddy. Catch the full interview. Top of the hour on Mad Money. More fast money in two. Welcome back to Fast Money. Newsmax continuing to skyrocket in its second day of trading. Second trading day? Yep. Today's nearly 180% move bringing its total gain to more than 2200% since its debut yesterday. That is right from $10 to $233 a share in two days. The stock now more valuable than Fox and Warner Brothers. Now the Newsmax offering was a bit unusual. The offering was sold only to retail Investors and subject to fewer regulatory and compliance requirements. It was a Reg A offering. Karen, you've been reading into this. What do you make of. What do I make of this whole thing?
- [43:23]
Ryan McIntyre
I mean, it's insane. I don't know what to make of it, really. I mean, $233 is where it went out on a valuation. To say it's difficult to get there is really. It's nearly impossible to get there. But this is just, you know, it's the next meme stock. I think this. It's similar to DJT. Do you remember that? Traded well north of 100. I think it's 1920 last. Maybe in there. You couldn't get me to touch this one.
- [43:53]
Melissa Lee
Genius that they only sold it to retail.
- [43:55]
Ryan McIntyre
Yeah, they did a great.
- [43:56]
Guy Adami
Yeah, it is. I mean, so how sustainable is this move? I know Dan's an avid viewer of the network, so maybe there is some sustainability. But at some point it gets to the point of absurdity. We saw it in djt. We're going to see it pretty quickly.
- [44:09]
Dan Nathan
You know, I just make the argument that this is great for the parent spin off of CNBC and MSNBC, SpinCo. Because if you're going to value things like that, My mom told me, if you have nothing good to say, don't say long, but.
- [44:23]
Melissa Lee
So you want to shot with this.
- [44:25]
Dan Nathan
While we're looking at valuations?
- [44:27]
Melissa Lee
Okay, go ahead.
- [44:27]
Dan Nathan
That's what I'm talking about, valuations. You want to give this thing a $20 billion valuation, then yeah.
- [44:31]
Melissa Lee
Other things have to be 29.
- [44:34]
Dan Nathan
Give me a ring.
- [44:35]
Ryan McIntyre
29 billion, whatever that is.
- [44:37]
Melissa Lee
And we have to wait six months in order for Katie to chart this right?
- [44:40]
Phil LeBeau
She'll be back.
- [44:41]
Melissa Lee
I think so. But do you. Do you agree that in terms of the valuation that is helpful to the other media stocks out there? Other?
- [44:48]
Ryan McIntyre
No, no, I don't really. Isolated, kind of. I mean. And yes, I don't. First of all, six months from now where this trades, which is when maybe Spinco comes out, who knows? Nobody knows.
- [45:00]
Melissa Lee
We don't know.
- [45:00]
Ryan McIntyre
We don't know who knows where this will be trading. So if it's. I mean, great. If it's day zero, you know what, that's great.
- [45:11]
Dan Nathan
I'd make a bid for Spinco right now. I'd use my stock and you know, I'm just saying.
- [45:16]
Melissa Lee
Interesting.
- [45:17]
Dan Nathan
Chris, can the ring. See what I can do.
- [45:19]
Melissa Lee
Up next, final trade waves. Time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn, Katie.
- [45:40]
Katie Stockton
I'll go with Northrop Grumman. Noc, It's a defense play and it has very good momentum, short, short term, room resistance.
- [45:48]
Melissa Lee
Chairwoman yes.
- [45:49]
Ryan McIntyre
So sometimes when you don't know exactly what to do because say there's a lot of volatility, a lot of news coming out, I find it's helpful to just do nothing. Let's watch, let's see what we're looking at tomorrow.
- [45:58]
Melissa Lee
I think that's a wise.
- [45:59]
Dan Nathan
What's the trade?
- [46:00]
Ryan McIntyre
Do nothing.
- [46:01]
Melissa Lee
Do nothing.
- [46:02]
Dan Nathan
Sandy I'm going to start doing that.
- [46:03]
Guy Adami
Okay.
- [46:03]
Dan Nathan
I just want to tell you that. So I want to just focus on the worst performing stock and guys, Faithful eight and I think what's second worst.
- [46:11]
Melissa Lee
Army in the faithful eight?
- [46:11]
Dan Nathan
Not just two tube Avgo for a bounce guy.
- [46:16]
Guy Adami
Please, let's not talk. My tube, by the way, is doing extraordinarily well. General Motors, Melissa Lee I think it bounces tomorrow.
- [46:24]
Melissa Lee
All right, thanks for watching Fast Money. See you back here tomorrow. Five More Fast Mad Money with Jim Kramer starts right now. All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of cnbc, NBC Universal, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the.
- [46:56]
Dan Nathan
Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither.
- [46:59]
Melissa Lee
CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Fast Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com fastmoneydisclaimer For 140 years.
- [47:13]
Megan Kisella
MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org.