Joel Elconin, co-host of the PreMarket Prep show and founder of the Stock Trader Network, joins us to recap this last week in the markets. We’ve seen a continuation in volatility across U.S. markets, so Joel breaks down the key drivers and thoughts on trading select sectors like tech, healthcare, airlines, hotels, and gold, and looks ahead to the coming bifurcation in reactions to Q1 earnings guidance.

We start off looking at the whipsaw moves lately in general US equities, and Joel provides some technical levels that have his attention.   He highlights the recent price action moves in Apple as an example of a company pulled between company fundamentals, the impacts of tariffs and tariff exemptions to their international manufacturing model, and what it may look like if it tried to reshore its factories here in the US.  This brings up the larger topic of how difficult it is for many companies to forecast or make plans in this on-again / off-again tariff policy environment, where some components or sectors get exemptions and others do not.

Next we pivot over to Jerome Powell’s perceived bearish comments on the economy, inflation, jobs, and the macroeconomic data mid-week, and how those further roiled the markets.  We discuss the current tug-of-war between the Feds’ monetary policy and the government’s fiscal policies, and what this all means for the health of the economy moving forward.

We then broadened the scope to review the trading and price levels to watch in other select stocks within tech, financials, healthcare, airlines, and hotels.  We note discuss the very different reactions we are seeing to some companies news and guidance if it is better than expected or the crushing results if it disappoints.   Joel offers his thoughts on how traders may react to this coming earnings season with regards to pulling profits, scalping deals, or reducing market exposure around key newsflow.  

Wrapping up we discuss the momentum and strength seen in gold, which broke to all-time highs again mid-week, and why it continues to separate from most other asset classes as the refuge from the volatility, even more so than other traditional safe havens like bonds or the US dollar.   Joel also weighs in on Google once again being ruled to be monopolistic by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year.

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