Murky Monday For Stocks… And Tariff Impact On Automakers 4/14/25

Summary

CNBC's "Fast Money" Podcast Summary: Episode - Murky Monday For Stocks… And Tariff Impact On Automakers (04/14/25)

Release Date: April 14, 2025
Host: Melissa Lee
Guests: Courtney Garrett, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami

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1. Market Overview and Performance

The episode opens with Dominic Chu providing an overview of the volatile trading session. The S&P 500 surged nearly 1.8% in early trading but fluctuated throughout the day, ultimately closing slightly up. Similarly, the NASDAQ and Dow Jones reached their session highs before maintaining modest gains by the end of the day.

Dominic Chu [01:01]:
"The S&P rose as much as almost 1.8% in early trading before falling briefly into the red at midday action."

Apple notably rose over 2% following the Trump administration's exemption of smartphones from reciprocal tariffs, pushing the company's market cap above the $3 trillion mark, though it remained below its daily peak.

2. Tariffs and Trade Policies Impact

A significant portion of the discussion centered around the ongoing tariff policies and their ramifications on various sectors, particularly automakers.

Dan Nathan [04:19]:
"The reality is the market doesn't really have any valuation support. And that $270 of earnings that the street was looking for is a pipe dream."

Karen Feinerman [10:28]:
"If you are a buyer of this technology, it's not good. Companies need to build data centers outside the U.S., which is one of the biggest issues going forward."

The Commerce Department's new investigations into semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports were also highlighted, indicating potential tariff implications for the entire electronic supply chain.

Meghan Casella [08:26]:
"The Commerce Department is officially launching investigations into whether imports of semiconductors and pharmaceuticals pose a threat to national security."

3. US Dollar and Treasury Yields

The decline of the US dollar and the rise in Treasury yields were discussed as indicators of shifting investor confidence.

Guy Adami [13:24]:
"Both the Dollar declined and U.S. treasury yields rose, suggesting investors are beginning to shun dollar-based assets."

Jens Nordvig [14:16]:
"There's a shift in asset allocation as people reduce US exposure, leading to dramatic dollar movements unseen in decades."

4. Corporate Updates: Nvidia, LVMH, Netflix

Nvidia's Investment in the US:

Nvidia announced a substantial investment in US manufacturing, committing to spending $500 billion over four years and partnering with Foxconn to build and test Blackwell chips domestically.

Christina Partsinevelos [18:53]:
"Nvidia is partnering with Foxconn to secure over a million square feet of manufacturing space in the US, showcasing a win under the Trump administration's tariff strategy."

LVMH's Sales Decline:

Luxury retailer LVMH experienced a 6% drop in shares due to a significant decline in sales, particularly in the spirits division, which saw a 9% fall.

Guy Adami [27:24]:
"LVMH missed expectations by a mile, with nothing positive in their latest sales figures."

Netflix's Growth Ambitions:

Netflix aims to reach a $1 trillion market cap and double its revenue by 2030, with plans to earn approximately $9 billion in global ad sales.

Courtney Garrett [12:16]:
"Netflix aims to reach a $1 trillion market cap and double its revenue by 2030, projecting around $9 billion in global ad sales."

5. Earnings Season Highlights

The episode covered strong earnings reports from Goldman Sachs, which reported a 15% rise in profits driven by trading revenues despite a decrease in deal-making activities. Upcoming earnings reports from Citigroup, Bank of America, and LVMH were also mentioned.

Courtney Garrett [23:13]:
"Goldman's deal-making revenue was down year-over-year, but their trading revenue surged, leading to a 15% profit increase."

6. Volatility Analysis across Asset Classes

Mandy Hsu from CBO discussed the unusual rise in volatility across various asset classes despite the VIX (CBO's measure of market volatility) hitting its lowest level in over a week.

Julia Borson [38:51]:
"Even though the VIX has fallen, volatility in other asset classes like bonds and commodities is increasing, indicating heightened macroeconomic uncertainty."

7. Consumer Spending Insights

The decline in high-end consumer spending was linked to broader economic uncertainties, affecting companies like LVMH and Netflix. Discussions highlighted how higher-income consumers are beginning to pull back on large purchases, especially in regions affected by tariffs such as the US and China.

Courtney Garrett [28:03]:
"The pullback in high-end consumer spending, particularly in the US and China, reflects broader economic uncertainties influenced by tariffs."

8. Fast Money Live Event Promotion

The episode concluded with an invitation to listeners to attend the next Fast Money live event on June 5th at the NASDAQ Market Site. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with the hosts and traders, participate in Q&A sessions, and receive exclusive memorabilia.

Dan Nathan [36:13]:
"Our community enjoys hanging out together, and the live event is a fantastic opportunity for listeners to engage directly with us."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Dan Nathan [04:19]:
  "The market doesn't really have any valuation support. And that $270 of earnings that the street was looking for is a pipe dream."

• Jens Nordvig [14:16]:
  "There’s a shift in asset allocation as people reduce US exposure, leading to dramatic dollar movements unseen in decades."

• Guy Adami [27:24]:
  "LVMH missed expectations by a mile, with nothing positive in their latest sales figures."

• Courtney Garrett [23:13]:
  "Goldman's deal-making revenue was down year-over-year, but their trading revenue surged, leading to a 15% profit increase."

• Julia Borson [38:51]:
  "Even though the VIX has fallen, volatility in other asset classes like bonds and commodities is increasing, indicating heightened macroeconomic uncertainty."

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Conclusion

The April 14th episode of CNBC's "Fast Money" delved deep into the murky terrains of the stock market, influenced heavily by tariff policies and global trade tensions. With notable insights on market volatility, currency dynamics, and corporate performances, the episode provided investors with a comprehensive analysis of the current financial landscape. The discussions underscored the persistent uncertainties in the market, urging a cautious yet informed investment approach amidst evolving economic policies.

Transcript

[Dominic Chu]

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[Dominic Chu]

All right. Thank you very much, David. Live from the NASDAQ market site right in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. And here's what's on tap tonight. Here we go again. That was a song, right? Another update done out day down day update day on Wall street as tariff headlines continue to rile up markets. Why one of our guests thinks we are setting up for a dramatic asset allocation shift with a major impact on the king US dol. Plus a check on China. New data shows a rush of shipments out of the country before Trump's tariffs took effect. Can it continue or is it the last breath before a trade war plunge? We'll debate that. And later on the real reason the US does not export cars to Europe. Why one volatility expert says we're not out of the woods just yet. And by the way, here comes the earnings flood. I'm Dominic Chewing from Melissa Lee tonight. Coming to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market site. On the desk tonight, Courtney Gartner Garcia, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. And we're going to start with another roller coaster ride for the markets overall as the S and P rose as much as almost 1.8% in early trading before falling briefly into the red at midday action. But the benchmark index then rebounded and nearly recaptured its best levels, but then ended the day up less than 1%. But it's still up. The NASDAQ and the Dow also finishing off their highest levels of the session, but still managing to hold onto those gains. As you can see there, Apple is one of the notable winners today, rising more than 2% after the Trump administration said that smartphones would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs. The move helping the stock climb back above the $3 trillion market cap level, though it still closed well off its highs of the day. But with continued uncertainty over Trump's tariff policy, can today's gains hold? And that is kind of where we talk about the desk here, guys. Is this something where we are still in a regime of buying dips or selling rallies or can you even generalize that? Karen, I'll start with you.

[Guy Adami]

So what I did today is, I mean Friday we thought, oh, maybe there'll be a really nice rally and then it sort of faded over the weekend. And what I did today was look to, I'm always long but I look to color some of my positions. Right. So that we had, we've had a lot of volatility so. And still the, the collar skewed to the upside, meaning you can sell a call and buy a put and for flat but have the put be a lot closer to the money. So it's sort of a way of taking off some risk. So I did that. It was so that the rally wasn't shocking that it was sort of faded and ended up, I mean I was actually a little bit surprised that it ended up as well as it did. I'm not quite sure if anything happened in the last half hour to make it fade or just sort of the weight of it, I don't know. But it is a tremendous time of uncertainty. I'm not, I'm not a buyer or a seller with the vix right here.

[Dominic Chu]

Guy. I've spoken to a number of folks who characterize this market as trading, quote, unquote, heavy. That's a term that a lot of traders use oftentimes in this business to kind of denote this idea that things may feel like they can drift lower. Is that your feeling right now or do you feel this is a balance that we can say, hey, maybe there's constructive elements to it.

[Dan Nathan]

Well, being heavy myself, welcome by the way.

[Dominic Chu]

Thank you. Thanks for being here with us.

[Dan Nathan]

I agree with that. This and the recent low was 4835, let's say the all time high was made in February. 6147, 5500 ish is a 50% retracement of that range. We've talked about the potential to go there and basically here we are now but the current point with the Vix north of 30, you're going to see action like this. And I get everybody wants to talk about the tariffs. Megan's going to come on and talk about it, I'm sure in a couple of minutes. But the reality is the market doesn't really have any valuation support. And that $270 of earnings that the street was looking for is a pipe dream. And if you get to 50, you might be lucky. And then you say in that type of environment, if things are slowing down, what's the right multiple? So you can play the math game. And I still think the market's expensive here despite the sell off over the last couple of weeks.

[Karen Feinerman]

Yeah, you know, listen, just look at Apple and look at Nvidia, right? So they gapped up, you know, and they just got faded from the get go. I mean, the high of the day, you know, was the open and that's not particularly good price action, you know, especially on a day you saw the 10 year yield come in at one point, like 8 or 9 bips, it was trading for 40 or something like that. We got up to 460 at one point last week. The dollar has no bounce to it. And you know, the thing that I found kind of concerning today is that you had the staples, utilities and telcos. They were, they outperformed the S&P 500 today. So what does that tell you about the way investors feel about how heavy this market is if they're willing to kind of plow into those groups after they've shown relative strength over the last few weeks or so? And there just doesn't seem to be a lot of commitment to the prior leadership. Now, one thing I will say as a silver lining guy on the desk, I thought the money, I thought the money center banks traded pretty well today. I think J.P. morgan, you know, took a little digestion after a big day on Friday. The thing that I would worry about is if one or two of Citi or Bank of America put up numbers or the sort of, you know, commentary that Wells Fargo did. I think the banks are done. I mean, I don't mean done done. I mean, but they, I think they probably come in and at some point they test the lows over the last two weeks. So if you're searching for new leadership and you liked what acted well today, again, telcos, utilities and staples, you're probably not getting what you want.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, so Courtney, this is a very fun point to bring up because in the past, in the course of the last maybe six to 12 months. Any time we've seen that quote, unquote, diversification into other parts of the market as leadership that are not necessarily mag seven related sectors. It has been called or billed as the broadening out of the rally is this idea that it could be healthier to see other companies besides, you know, Apple and Microsoft and Nvidia and metal platforms do the heavy lifting. Now it's like, oh, that's defensive sectors leading the way. That's not good, is it? So in your mind, what is it? Is it positive or negative?

[Courtney Garret]

Yeah, and I think it's just showing how much uncertainty there still is.

[Dominic Chu]

Right.

[Courtney Garret]

So we're seeing this on the business front where businesses are just really not willing to put capital to work. And it's not so much the tariffs themselves, the fact that they keep changing and how are you supposed to go on with business when you don't know what it's going to look like in the next few months? And it's like that with consumers and it's like that with investors. Where, yes, I think people are hopeful that we're getting towards an end of this rally, but they're not calling an end to this. They're not saying, oh, there could be some new tweet and some new uncertainty coming down the line and that's why you're seeing these defensive sectors play out. So, yes, I do still think you want to stay diversified. Here you are still seeing a diversified portfolio has been holding up a lot better than the S&P 500 this year. So whether it's going to broaden out or not, it's still important to do that. As a longer term investor.

[Dominic Chu]

Do you feel as though, just to follow up on that, that you want to see a certain leadership, if you could take your pick in your own playbook, what's the sector or two that you would love to see lead the next leg of the rally?

[Courtney Garret]

Well, quite honestly, if we did actually see this broadening, if you see entire markets going up, not just seven companies, I think that's a much better sign that you're seeing this healthy rally come out than just a few companies that are doing well. So will it happen or not? I don't know, but I do think that would be a healthy sign if we saw that.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, so in the meantime, some of the new headlines from the Commerce Department are looking into semiconductors and pharma imports as well. Meghan Casella is in Washington D.C. with the details there. There is a lot of, I guess, lack of transparency in all of this. So can you break down what we actually do know and what we don't know?

[Meghan Casella]

MEGHAN Lack of transparency, Dom is one way to put it. You could also say a number of conflicting headlines coming out day after day, but just in the last hour, the Commerce Department now officially launching investigations into weather imports of semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, whether they pose a threat to national security. Now, we've long heard that this was coming, but this is the formal first step and this paves the way ultimately for some tariffs to be coming. I will note they outlined in the formal order that there is going to be a 21 day comment period. That means at least at a minimum three weeks for companies to write in to request exclusions and that sort of thing. We wouldn't see any tariffs until after that, but it could be much longer than that as well. They have up to about nine months if they wanted to to investigate this. But a White House official did tell me earlier today that commerce officials have been working on this in the background, even without this formal. So I would expect it to be much faster than that on the semiconductors. I'll also note that in this formal order they also told us they're not going to be looking just at semiconductors, they're looking upstream and downstream as well. The upshot there is that tariffs ultimately could impact the entire electronic supply chain. Anything that uses a semiconductor, that's not definite, but it paves the way for that if they want to do that. And of course, this move now comes after those tech exemptions over the weekend, mostly smartphones, laptops, things like that. Now today the president also hinting, suggesting that there could be further relief he specified on autos as well in the Oval Office he was asked about this and said that he was asked about what exemptions he might be considering and he said he's looking at doing something for the car companies, which are of course still subject to that 25% auto tariff on parts and cars that is still in place. So Dom, lots more to watch in the coming days and weeks, both on the tariff side and on the relief.

[Dominic Chu]

Side as well, and specific industry groups that they affect. Megan Casella, thank you very much for breaking it down as much as we know for this time. Karen, let's turn to you on this. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

[Guy Adami]

This is so broad and so vague. I really don't even know what to make of it. I mean, we're talking about the idea of semiconductor, I mean semiconductors so pervasive in everything. Everything. Okay. So I don't. I don't really know how to figure this into what's going to happen.

[Dominic Chu]

Does that mean that you are not making investment decisions based solely on what's coming out of the White House right now?

[Guy Adami]

Yes, yes. It's.

[Karen Feinerman]

I think you make an argument that it's. It's just a bunch of bs. I mean, when you think about this, Jensen Huang goes down to Mar a Lago. He leaves there, he gets an occlusion on his H2 H20 chip to sell to China. The Chinese, like, they've already bought $16 billion of H20s, like stockpiling them in front of this in the last three months. That was equal to all that was sold last year. So if the idea is that this is a matter of national security, not just them getting our best technology. Now, granted, the 20s are not their best technology, but they're good enough right now. And in replace, you know, like, for data centers, to go in there and say, we're going to bid hundreds of billions of dollars of data centers here, it's going to take them a very long time to do that. So I guess the question is, is like, who's getting what here? I think the Chinese are kind of getting a better deal because we know that Nvidia is not going to spend a half a trillion dollars here over the next, you know, what years or so to do that. And so, again, back and forth with this sort of stuff is not helping anybody. To Courtney's point, if you are a buyer of this technology, if you are a construction, you know, like, if you're in the business of making data centers and the like, it's not good. And the other thing is these companies need to build these data centers outside the U.S. they built a lot here, you know what I mean? So that's one of the biggest issues I think, going forward. So I think this, you know, legislature, whatever they want to call it, is clear as mud.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, let's turn to another part of the market. We got a news alert right now on Netflix. That stock is higher after hours, as you can see. Julia Borsche and has more on what's behind the move. Higher. Julia.

[Guy Adami]

Hey, Dom.

[Courtney Garret]

That's right. The stock seems to be popping on a report that Netflix aims to reach a $1 trillion market cap and double its revenue by 2030. That's according to a Wall Street Journal report citing executives. The company who also reportedly said that the company aims to earn about $9 billion in global ad sales by 2030. Now the streamer has not yet disclosed its ad revenue yet, but E Marketer estimates it will top about $2 billion in ad sales this year. We have reached out to Netflix for comment, have not heard back yet. But to put this all in context, the company's market cap is now about $400 billion and shares are up more than 50% in the past year and now they're up about 2% in after hours. Back over to you.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, not Mag 7, but it used to be part of the Fang regime back in the day. Julia Borson, thank you very much for the Netflix update. Turn now back towards the trade discussion. The US Dollar is down again today, now off almost three and a half percent over the course of this past week. Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who also served as Treasury Secretary under President Biden, was delivering a warning on Squawk box this morning about the state of play.

[Guy Adami]

Both the Dollar declined and U.S. treasury yields rose. And what that suggests is that investors are beginning to shun dollar based assets and that calling into question the safety of what is the bedrock of the global financial system, namely U.S. treasuries.

[Dominic Chu]

Okay, so let's bring in currency expert Jens Nordvig, Exante Data's founder and CEO. He's also co founder and CEO of Market Reader Wall street analysis platform. Jens, you and I both have backgrounds, you much more so than I in foreign exchange currencies, commodities rates and everything else. What do you think is the real situation with the dollar right now? Is the shine coming off or is this just something technical to watch out for?

[Jens Nordvig]

A lot of investors were very optimistic about United States going into this year. A lot of people had very, very elevated US Equity exposure in their international portfolios, happy with owning US Treasuries that had higher yields than most other bonds, right. And now we are suddenly facing just an accumulation of shocks, trade shocks, shocks to foreign policy that people didn't expect. And people are getting very uncomfortable having these very big US Exposures in their European portfolios, Canadian portfolios, Australian portfolios that could go on. And we saw it in the price action last week. Very, very dramatic. And it's continuing this week, right, with some of the biggest dollar moves we've seen for decades as these asset allocation shifts get in motion, people reducing US Exposure and we don't have to talk about is this the reserve currency status that is in question, but people just have too much exposure. We've been used to talking about US Exceptionalism, right? And certainly from a cyclical perspective, we have a lot weaker growth Outlook, that's one part of it. But also structurally, there are some question marks about how safe U.S. assets are. And those two things together is a problem.

[Dominic Chu]

So how about this? How about if I ask you whether or not you are seeing evidence of this when you speak to your clients, you talk to a lot of real money managers, asset managers, not just hedge funds, but mutual fund managers, pension fund investors. What are they saying? Is this something where they are, where you are hearing conversations about this as opposed to just saying, I think it's this?

[Jens Nordvig]

Yes, we speak to chief investment officers around the world all the time, and I think it's very clear that they're in the middle of an asset allocation shift. This is not like a hedge fund where it changes their decision from one day to the other and positions change very quickly. This is something that's going to go on for multiple months. They have big portfolios. They have investment committees that need to be consulted. Right. But it's a shift that is in motion. We can also see in our data, like we spent a lot of time tracking flow data over the last couple of weeks, big shift in terms of the attractiveness of European bonds versus US Bonds, something that's very rare. Normally they move together, but not in the last couple of weeks.

[Dan Nathan]

Let's get a little granular because the move in dollar yen last August that triggered that whole sell off in the equities market on August 5th. Very quietly, dollar yen's 143. I'm sure they're light bulbs and flashing red right now. Thoughts on the weakness in the dollar against the yen.

[Jens Nordvig]

So last night we had some headlines that came across that said Scott Bessen was going to talk with Japanese counterparts about dollar policy. Right. So a part of the uncertainty around the dollar has to do with dollar policy. We've been used to for many decades, that we had some kind of strong dollar policy policy. And with this administration, we don't know exactly what the dollar policy is yet, but there's a lot of concerns that it could be a weaker dollar policy. Doing accords with Japan and around the yen would be something that structures an orderly decline of the dollar against the yen. And that's part of the thing we can see in the price action. Right. Last night.

[Dominic Chu]

All right. This is a crazy conversation that it could go on for another three hours, I think, about the king dollar and everything else. Jens Nordvig, Exante, thank you very much. We'll see you soon, sir.

[Jens Nordvig]

Thank you.

[Dominic Chu]

All right. Meanwhile, we have an issue here with everything that yen said because There is a debate about whether or not US Based assets are facing some kind of a lack of at least a little bit of lost luster in this. Do we feel. Courtney, I'll go to you first. Do you feel as though the US treasury market and the dollar are still those assets that people would want to have reserve status or otherwise?

[Courtney Garret]

I'm not ready to throw out the towel on that yet. I know that's really the big conversation right now, but I think what it does lead to, and there was a lot of talk about this with Yen's points, which I think he brought up very smartly, is there are a lot of people who are finally realizing, okay, US might not be the only place to be. And we talk a lot about diversification of small caps, mid caps. You don't want to forget that investing abroad is part of that. That's where we have for decades, our clients have been saying, why invest in Europe, why invest in China? And this is the first year where people are happy to have that in their portfolio because it's actually been a good diversifier. We do continue to see the dollar weaken. That's where you can. You want to make sure that you have some of those hedges in your portfolio. Kind of regardless of the reasoning behind that is all right.

[Dominic Chu]

Well, meanwhile, Nvidia is also making another major air investment here in America. And CNBC is Crusader Parts and Evolis has the details behind this next chapter of what could be the American exceptionalism trade.

[Christina Partsinevelos]

Yeah, it could. Nvidia is a pretty much saying that they're going to be spending $500 billion in four years. They did announce this though, about a month ago. What we're hearing today is additional information. They're partnering and they're going to be securing over a million square feet of manufacturing space. With Foxconn, for example, they're going to be building and testing Blackwell chips on US Soil. We don't know how much. We also don't know how much they're going to reallocate their manufacturing to the United States. Because you have to keep in mind Foxconn, based off of Nvidia's website, they put the servers together. They don't necessarily make the chips from scratch. That's something TSMC back in Taiwan does. So I think that that's really important to keep in mind. But this is just showcasing how it's a win underneath Trump and it's validating, according to him, President Trump validating his tariff Strategy. You had Apple 500 or Apple committing amount of money TSMC an additional 100 billion. And now you have Nvidia as well. So these are all considered wins under him.

[Dominic Chu]

What do you think, Dan?

[Karen Feinerman]

Well, I was just saying this in K parts. When I think about this is like, what's a win in this day and age, right? Because we saw a lot of these announcements, you know, going back to 2018, 2019, I think it's fantastic if they can get Taiwan semi in Phenix, right, to kind of make these chips, and they're talking about doing one in Texas. But what is the goal, in your opinion? What do you think is more important not to actually send our best technology over to China or diversify our supply chains? Because I think there's probably some sort of combination that makes the most sense. But they're not giving us, the administration, a whole heck of a lot of clarity on that.

[Christina Partsinevelos]

You would want them not to send their technology to China. But when you put restrictions in place, what's happening is it's further strengthening the chip space over there. Look at how Huawei has really advanced. It may not be up to par with Nvidia, but the fact that the US Government has threatened to ban. Sorry, the Chinese government has threatened to ban the H20s. I know you guys spoke about, you know, Trump backing down and not banning it here, but that doesn't stop China from doing so. And China is only able to say that now because they're that confident in the chips that they have on Chinese soil, which says a lot for Huawei right now. And I think we're underestimating the strength over there. So I think in terms of importance, it's really about advancing our technology. So we're always at least a decade ahead of any other country in the world, and that discrepancy is just shrinking.

[Dominic Chu]

I don't think any American patriot is going to disagree with that, by the way. So anyway, Christina, Canadian. There you go from the Canadian. Christina, thank you very much for the update on Nvidia there. All right, coming up, we got big bank earnings filtering in. Goldman Sachs topping expectations, and there's even more financial results on deck. That trade is coming up next. Plus a luxury letdown. Shares of LVMH drop in today's session. The results hitting that retailer ahead on the show as well. Don't go anywhere. Fastest back into.

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Register [e-mail] CareerChange welcome back to Fast Money. As you're seeing their Goldman Sachs shares popping nearly 2% today after a top and bottom line beat for its first quarter. The investment banking giant posting a 15% rise in profits and a surge in trading revenues. But CEO David Solomon did not did note that some clients are pressing pause on dealmaking until guess what, there's more clarity on trade. We're going to hear more from the banks tomorrow with Citigroup and Bank of America reporting as well. Courtney, what is the bank trade so far tell you about the health of the American financial system?

[Courtney Garret]

Yeah, and there was a lot of optimism at the beginning of this year that you were going to see a lot more deal making with the Trump administration coming in. You were going to see corporate tax cuts. This should be really good for the banking industry. And then tariffs came which meant everybody was putting a pause on decision making. And that's really what you saw reflected in Goldman's numbers where you saw that their deal making revenue was actually down year over year is really the trading revenue. That really is why they beat expectations because of all the volatility. And I think what you want to look at is it's a great that they're holding up. Does that come down the pipeline though, however, is that dealmaking still going to happen? Is there still going to be less regulation and tax cuts once we get past these tariffs? I don't know when that will happen, but eventually that will be a good thing for them. I think it's going to be really interesting to see to some of the more consumer facing banks what they're saying about the consumer saying that's really what people want to see is how is the economy actually holding up right now?

[Dominic Chu]

Guy, we have consumer facing banks on deck, right? I mean Citi and B of A, those are two bigger consumer facing banks. What are you looking for from that?

[Dan Nathan]

Well, throw up a Bank of America chart. I'm sure crack staff can go back a few years and we just traded up to 48 and failed. That was a prior high. So major double top technically. And they're not going to be protected, they being bank of America, from some of the things that we've been talking about for a while. J.P. morgan, I'm sure Karen brought it up last week. The loan loss provision that they took, I think was a little eye opening to me. And there's more to come for some of these banks. So I'm hard pressed to believe that Bank America can sort of sidestep all these problems I think these other banks are facing now.

[Dominic Chu]

What do you think, Karen?

[Guy Adami]

So I mean, he brings up a good point. We'll see. They both Citi and Bank of America have very big credit card portfolios. We didn't see any uptick really in JP Morgan's numbers. But this will be telling, I think for just this past quarter. I'd love to hear the commentary. Brian Moynihan has a very good look at the economy, you know, writ large. So I'll be interested to see what he, how he feels things are going. I don't know that this quarter matters. One thing Solomon brought up that I think is really important is and one thing Jamie Dimon talked about a lot is this hope of deregulation and what that would do to free up capital at the banks. And we'll see because this first part, the deal making, like Courtney said, has really not come to pass at all. Trading revenue is great. It's up huge and it will be up huge this quarter. But that doesn't get a multiple like some other revenues do.

[Dominic Chu]

Dimon did mention that specifically, right. As a possible tailwind in his annual shareholder letter, the deregulation environment into, you know, tax reform and everything else. Anyway, you don't want to miss bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on the back of his bank's quarterly results. That's tomorrow at 10:30am Eastern time. Must watch interview right here on CNBC. And coming up on the show, luxury losses. Shares of LVMH are sinking as high end shoppers tighten their purse strings on, well, purses of all other things, what it means for the broad consumer coming up next. And more on the impact of tariffs in the auto sector as we kind of home in on the imports and exports to and from the eu. You're watching Fast MONEY live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We are back right after this.

[Courtney Garret]

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 who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn [e-mail] feeling stuck in your job?

[Karen Feinerman]

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[Julia Boorstin]

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[Karen Feinerman]

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[Dominic Chu]

Register [e-mail] CareerChange welcome back to Fast Money. US traded shares of LVMH down 6% today after the luxury retailer reported a sharp decline in sales. Consumers are reining in spending on leather goods and champagne. In the quarter, the company's spirits division saw sales fall by 9%. Karen, people are not drinking as much MO A.

[Guy Adami]

They're not doing anything that LVMH is doing. I mean this has been a terrible one across the board in every category. Wines and spirits were particularly terrible geographically. You know, Asia ex Japan terrible, US down, not horrible. But there was absolutely nothing to like. And going into it, the expectations I thought were pretty low. Right. And they missed them by a mile. Nothing to like here.

[Dominic Chu]

Okay, Courtney, what can you glean about the global consumer from a niche kind of end of the market that caters to very, very wealthy individuals?

[Courtney Garret]

Well, I think what this is really a sign of is how is the higher income consumer holding up?

[Guy Adami]

Right.

[Courtney Garret]

And are they starting to pull back on purchases? I think that there's a case to be made that they may not be hurting necessarily right now there's a lot of data showing the consumer still on good footing. But are they pushing off some of these larger purchases and that's what you're seeing and specifically in US And China is actually where you saw a lot of that pullback. I think Europe was actually their only area that you did see some growth on. But where it's China and Europe, where have the tariffs, we have a lot of the uncertainty. That's where you're seeing the pullback even in the higher income consumer right now.

[Dominic Chu]

Guy, as we talk about the US high end consumer, it's, I mean they're all cross selling across borders. But US luxury retail, I think of names like Tapestry or Capri as we know it today or maybe Ralph Lauren. What exactly would you be looking to see how these stocks trade in the coming weeks?

[Dan Nathan]

Tapestry is a coach play. Karen can speak to this and Coach has been killing it. As a matter of fact, if they got rid of some of the other stuff there, they'd be killing it a lot more. But with that said, I mean, I think it speaks to the fact that people are getting scared and it happens on both ends of the spectrum. But if you pull up that LVM U Y chart real quick, we're at levels we last saw in 2022. So you talk about major support. We are right here. And Karen's right. This is a stock that has not traded well now for the last, I don't know, a year and a half, almost two years.

[Dominic Chu]

All right. Coming up on the show, we got international autos and why US Manufacturers have such a hard time selling their products in Europe. The hard realities being overlooked in D.C. fast Money is back in two minutes. Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks are kicking off the week with another volatile session, losing an early rally and then even dipping in a negative territory midday before ultimately finishing higher. The Dow gaining more than 300 points. The S&P is up 8.10 of A percent. And the NASDAQ climbing more than half a percent as well. Well, China stocks are getting a boost today. The K Web ETF 2.5% higher. China export data for March showed a big jump as factories rushed shipments out before the US tariffs took effect. Alibaba, JD.com, pDD all higher. And Pfizer announcing it would halt development of its experimental daily weight loss pill. A patient in the drug trial suffered a liver injury potentially caused by potentially caused by the medication. Pfizer down more than 16% so far this year to date. And shares of Rocket Lab jumping after hours. The space company announcing it was selected to participate in two multi billion dollar development deals with both the United States and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, auto companies are getting a boost after President Trump said he wanted to, quote, unquote, help some U.S. car manufacturers as tariffs take a bite out of the business. The remarks come as American automakers are having a tough time selling their products in Europe. Our own Phil LaBeau joins us now with more on what's next for these names in the US Automaking market. Phil?

[Phil LeBeau]

Yeah, a couple of areas where the tariff war is really impacting the automakers. There is North America, what's happening with Canada and with Mexico, usmca. That's separate from the discussion of whether or not there should be lower tariffs between the United States, we only pay we pay a 10% tariff on vehicles sent there and Europe, which only pays a 2.5% tariff tariff for vehicles Sent here. And that's created a trade imbalance that the White House loves to hammer. This is one of their main arguments. The argument being, look, they can sell a lot of vehicles here at a 2.5% tariff. Look, we only sell 164,000 over there at a 10% tariff. The implication is, why don't we sell more vehicles over there? And would we sell more if there was not such a high tariff? Well, that raises some questions about what we do send over there. The bulk of the vehicles that we send over there, a lot of them come from BMW's plant in South Carolina. Last year, they exported almost 95,000 vehicles from that plant to Europe. And they're quite popular over there. A number of them also come from the Mercedes plant in Alabama. What do we send over to Europe? Not a whole lot. There are the performance vehicles. We're talking about, the Mustang and the Corvette. They're really only manufactured here in the United States, and they are in demand. Those are quality brands that people want in Europe, but not in high numbers. And so when you look at the automakers, take a look at shares of General Motors. They pulled out of Europe in 2017, Dom. They sold Vauxhall and they sold Opel. And remember, for 20 straight years before that, they couldn't make money every year. It was the annual report where they said, we lost a billion, a half billion, whatever it was, they could not make money in Europe. So they pulled out. Take a look at Ford. It has trimmed its European operations over the last decade, decade and a half. Still has some plants over in Europe, primarily focusing on electric vehicles as well as commercial vehicles. But they do have some operations over there. And then there's Stellantis. They have sold more than 100,000 jeeps in the last year in Europe. And that's good for the Jeep brand. Most of those, however, are made in Europe. Bottom line is this, Dom. In the United States, what do we manufacture? Primarily pickup trucks, large SUVs. We do manufacture some other vehicles as well, but those are the bread and butter for the big three. You don't see pickup trucks in Europe and large SUVs in very small numbers, given the size of the streets and the cities, etc. Bottom line is that even if we do see the tariffs come to a lower level for both the Europe and US in terms of autos, not sure we're going to see a lot more vehicles going from the United States to Europe.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, Phil, with the update there on the auto business. Thank you very much for that, Dan. I want to turn to you. Even if we don't get to complete parity or close to it with auto sales from a number standpoint between our two continents, are the automakers somewhere that you would want to put money at this point given what we know and don't know about tariffs?

[Karen Feinerman]

Listen, if they're going to get support from Trump, yeah, sure, right. I mean, like at the end we're never going to get to that kind of parody as it relates to Europe for all the reasons that, that, you know, Phil just said. You know, I'd be more worried about Chinese exports to the EU as long as we have these sorts of tariffs that are going to go up and as long as we are threatening the EU with these sorts of retaliatory, you know, like the cars that they make in China are much cheaper than the cars here, even if they're facing, you know, 10% tariffs. I think that's what the EU has on China right now. And you know, BYD is an absolute monster. They've outsold Tesla as far as cars units in China and they're all either battery electric, they're either fully electric or they're, you know, hybrid, that sort of thing. And so they are making a push there. So I think you should expect to see more BYD cars in Europe especially the longer that we kind of have this kind of tit for tat with the eu.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, so speaking of, if you want to drill down more on the impact of tariffs on your money, join us for the next Fast Money live event on June 5th right here at the NASDAQ markets side. I'm looking right over to where you guys would be. You're going to get a chance to watch this show here live, maybe ask a question live on the air and then you're going to stick around for an exclusive Q and A session followed by some one on one time with our Fast Money traders at a top shelf cocktail hour. You're also going to walk away with a great one of a kind piece of Fast Money memorabilia and for those of you who don't already have it, also a six month subscription to CNBC Pro. Now to get in on the action and get your ticket, just head over to CNBC events.com fastmoney or just click on the QR code that you see on your screen right there and maybe I'll toss this out to Guy first. First of all, can I come watch?

[Guy Adami]

Absolutely.

[Dominic Chu]

And the last one looked like it was a blast. And this time with the markets really whipping, sawing around, all over the place. It would seem like an important time for Fast Money fans to maybe get a chance to sit down with you guys and chat about how to navigate these markets from your kind of professional perspective. What do you think fans and participants, ticket holders, would get in terms of the utility or insight from being around you guys to hear what you guys do in these markets?

[Dan Nathan]

Well, it's a lot of. First of all, we have a lot of fun and we get as much enjoyment out of the people who are here the last time. Mary Duffy and her team did an incredible job. They're still getting emails from people saying what an extravagant, what an amazing time they had and how they're looking forward to coming to the next one. And what you're part of is a community, and we feel that way. This show's on air now for 18 years. We have one of the most loyal audience bases out there, and we're finding it out firsthand. And the ability for folks to come here, hang out with us, more importantly, us to hang out with you. I don't know if you can put a price tag on that.

[Dominic Chu]

Karen, during the last session that you guys had here for Fast Money Live, what did you think were some of the more interesting questions or discussions that you guys engaged in with the audience that you guys had at that last event?

[Guy Adami]

Well, one of them was about the final trade, which we talk about a lot. So. Well, the thing that I think is the most interesting is you have people who come that. But there's five of us. We all have. There's Melissa, four of us. And we all sort of have different strategies, different things. We like, we don't like. It speaks to some part of this audience. And so you can see who sort of gravitates where, right. Some are more bullish, some are more afraid. You know, I'm always long, so I get a lot of people who will be, you know, frustrated right now, but I completely understand that. We learn from them, too. But it's fun. We had a really good time. I actually was very, very pleasantly surprised.

[Dominic Chu]

I've heard lots of great things about it. And I can't look, I can't wait to kind of see how this next one plays out as well. So to remind you all again, to get your tickets, just click on the QR code that you're seeing on your screen right there. And if you are listening to us on the go on the radio, SiriusXM, just head over to CNBC events.com fastmoney all in one word, this is going to be an off the charts event. Yes, pun intended. Well, coming up on the show, another whipsaw day for markets. Volatility is down today, but but still well above the average since Trump's tariff announcement took effect. And CBO's Mandy Hsu says that we're not out of the woods just yet. She joins us now to explain. So don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back after this break. Welcome back to FAST money. Volatility retreating today's session with the VIX hitting its lowest level in over a week. But our next guest says big moves in other asset classes could signal more market gyrations ahead. Mandy Hsu is CBO's head of derivatives Market intelligence, somebody who knows all about the inner workings of how these things tell us or our tea leaves for the future. So tell us, is the volatility regime going to continue?

[Julia Boorstin]

I would say yes. And that's because even though the VIX has fallen pretty significantly over the past week, we are seeing volatility in other asset classes actually increase. And that divergence is pretty unusual.

[Dominic Chu]

Like where, by the way, commodities, oil.

[Julia Boorstin]

Gold, currencies, and the most notable one is fixed income bonds. So our VIX TLT indicator, which measures volatility in the bond market, that went up 60 points last week, it's retraced a little bit today, but it's still near multi year highs.

[Dominic Chu]

And how often, I mean, what does that signal? How often do we see moves of that variety in underlying volatility for something like a long bond etf?

[Julia Boorstin]

It's very unusual. Last time we had this big of a move was in 2022, which if you recall was when the Fed was aggressively raising rates. What's interesting actually in the bond market right now is if you look at options positioning, people have really flipped their positioning. So for most of this past couple weeks, people were positioning for yields to go lower as a positioning for potential recession. But over the past week that completely switched. And now what we're seeing is actually more demand for puts in tlt, positioning for yields to go higher. And I think that's significant because as we know, typically Treasuries is a safe haven asset. And we've seen over the past week, you know, falling treasury prices plus weaker dollar. That really indicates an erosion of confidence in the US Markets right now.

[Guy Adami]

So you're saying that the volatility in these other asset classes is likely to induce additional volatility in the equity markets, could spill over?

[Julia Boorstin]

Certainly. But I think it indicates that the macro outlook is a lot more uncertain going forward than maybe what is priced into the equity market right now.

[Dominic Chu]

If you look at the way things are shaping up, then is the protection that you would buy for possible downside volatility relatively cheap in your mind, or is it still elevated? It's elevated compared to what it was two years ago.

[Julia Boorstin]

Correct.

[Dominic Chu]

But not compared to what it was two weeks ago.

[Julia Boorstin]

So overall volatility levels are down. So if you're talking about the premium they're spending for protection, whether it's in the equity market or others, that's certainly lower compared to the high a week ago, but it's certainly not low. And what we actually seen in the equity market over the past week is even as markets have rebounded, we're seeing that demand for protection still continue in the equity options market as well.

[Dan Nathan]

So, Mandy, this volatility periods lasted now more than a month. How long do these typically last? I mean, this could go on for, I think, longer than people realize.

[Julia Boorstin]

I think so too. I think it really depends again on the underlying economic condition. When we go through a recession, you could be in a prolonged period of elevated volatility. I think in the past decade or so, you know, certainly people have gotten used to really quick VIX spikes and then very fast retracements. Those tend to be more technical moves like what we saw last August. When is it fundamentally driven, then you could be in a prolonged period of elevated volatility.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, that's not good to hear. Mandy Shew at sibo, thank you very much. We'll see you again soon for sure. Thanks for joining us here. All right, Dan, given everything we just heard from Mandy, is this a time that you would want to be defensive or buying put protection or downside?

[Karen Feinerman]

I think you want to wait a little bit longer. Let's kind of see if they're trying to put a bottom in the last coup of days. You know, I don't think they're going to. I mean, maybe they rally another, you know, 3% or something like that in the S&P 500. I think there's a lot of overhead resistance, technically in the 5750, 50, 800 level. And I think you'll see a lot of folks put on protection there. I think one of the reasons why you had that spike in the vix, the way it just kind of moved higher and has actually stayed fairly elevated, is I don't think a lot of people were hedged up, you know, and I think they're reaching for it. Once they saw a lot of different Asset classes go haywire together. Obviously, that's the dollar, that's yields. And it was the stock market was kind of the perfect storm because the stuff that the White House and the treasury said, they were focused on the 10 year yield and they didn't care about the stock market. Well, they both went the opposite direction, which is a lack of confidence I think among investors, which would cause you at that later point to put on protection.

[Dominic Chu]

All right. Well, coming up, the show earnings season is full swing right now and our traders are eyeing a few Keith names this week. What they're expecting to see in those results coming up next. We got more fast coming back after this. Welcome back to FAST money. A huge slate of earnings across various sectors still to come this week, potentially giving fresh reads on the impact of those tariffs in the economy. You got United Airlines, Johnson and Johnson, American Express, Dr. Horton and Netflix, Netflix, the aforementioned, all on the calendar and docket. So Dan, what are you watching out of this Netflix report, given what we heard from Julia?

[Karen Feinerman]

Well, I'm going to take one off the board here. I'm going to say American Express because I wanted to get you didn't come to me during that.

[Dominic Chu]

I mean, I wanted to go there.

[Karen Feinerman]

So I'm going to talk about American Express on Thursday morning. I think that'll be a really interesting data point if we're trying to tie together some of the higher end consumer stuff, what they have to say, what sort of visibility they have if they're trying to take some loan loss reserves, that sort of thing. So to me it's American Express.

[Dominic Chu]

All right. That's the high end consumer. So Karen, I'm going to go to you for Netflix then because I want to hear Netflix.

[Guy Adami]

Well, Dan and I had the same thought, which really doesn't happen very often at all, which was the piece that Julia did about this, the report about those projections. Yes, projections. Odd they're reporting later this week. Why did that come out today? How did that come out? I don't know. I, you know, I, that's interesting to me. I think the stock will trade up tomorrow. It's hung in there pretty well. But it is not cheap by any means. I am long. It is expensive.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, Courtney, what do you think? What are you watching out for?

[Courtney Garret]

Yeah, I think Dr. Horton is actually going to be an interesting one to watch mainly because of what's been going on with mortgage rates. Right. I think there's a lot of people hoping you're going to see rates coming down because that increased demand or the demand that's sitting on the sidelines waiting to buy houses has not gone away. And I think it's going to be really interesting to see do they have any sort of visibility? Are consumers holding back right now? I think they're arguably in your homebuilders in general are in a better position if rates stay high because that means all of your current homeowners who have rates less than 4% aren't going to be putting their houses on the market. So I think seeing any sort of read through there's been really interesting.

[Dominic Chu]

The golden handcuffs. All right, coming up next, your final trades. Keep it right here. All right, don't forget to buy your ticket for the next Fast Money live event on June 5th right here at the NASDAQ market site. You can chat with Melissa and the traders on how to navigate these volatile market conditions. Tickets, they are Limited. Only 100 folks are admitted in. So click on the QR code on your screen or head over to CNBC events.com fastmoney Guy, this is a big deal.

[Dan Nathan]

I know you're coming. I'm looking at you right now, folks. I see you coming. But Dom, you said you're coming. So it's only fair that we extend the invitation to Courtney who should be there as well. Just make it sort of a we widen the net.

[Dominic Chu]

There you go. I like it. Alright, now it's time for the final trades. Let's go around the horn. Speaking of with Courtney first, Dr. Horton.

[Courtney Garret]

We talked about this earlier. I. Take a look. They really sold off this year.

[Guy Adami]

All right, Karen, selling some Netflix upside calls tomorrow.

[Dominic Chu]

Dan? Yeah.

[Karen Feinerman]

Seller queues on rallies and Guy, you're the man.

[Dan Nathan]

Dom, Nike.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, thanks for watching Fast Money. Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now. See you tomorrow.

[Courtney Garret]

All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, 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 Fast Money participants consider reliable. But neither 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 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 who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn [e-mail].