For Week Ending April 19th

Markets

DJI ----> -1.14% VIX----> -27.19%

Nasdaq----> -0.62% Russel----> +2.69%

S&P 500----> +0.28% Hang Seng----> +3.45%

Earnings

Goldmann Sachs: Saw better than expected results with $4.11 billion (expect. 2.89 billion) and $13.87 billion in revenue (expect. 12.31 billion). They also beat expectations on net interest income by .25 billion.

American Express: Another beat on expectations showing that consumer spending is up.

-Many of the financial companies reported better than expected earnings. However, many of the CEO's warned about future quarters as the tariff volatility catches up to consumer spending and prices.

Upcoming Earnings

Monday: No Notable Earnings

Tuesday: Tesla, GE, Verizon, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Capital One, Steel Dynamics

Wednesday: Philip Morris, IBM, AT&T, Thermo Fisher, Texas Instruments, Boeing, General Dynamics, Chipotle, Discover

Thursday: Google, Procter & Gamble, T-Mobile, Pepsico, Merck, Union Pacific, Comcast, Intel, Ameriprise, Southwest Airlines

Friday: Colgate-Palmolive

Geopolitics

• Good news coming from Washington as Donald Trump hinted on Friday to possible trade deals with China in the next couple weeks.

• After rumors of an extended ceasefire in Ukraine, it has ended with zero deals being made leading to further aerial attacks from Russia.

• Trump V.S Powell: Trump has urged Powell to lower rates all of last week, however, the inflation rate is still at 2.4%, 0.4 off the Fed's target. Another issue the fed faces is the prospective rise in inflation rates in regard to Trump's trade war. This puts the Fed in a really difficult position on making a decision given the swarm of uncertainty.

How Are The Markets?

-Earlier last week on Monday, Mandy Xu- CBOE Global Markets Derivatives Market Intelligence Head brought light to an ever-growing concern. Although we have seen the VIX decrease significantly from its month's high, she argues that there is still concerning underlying risk. Equities may have cooled a bit, but we still see volatility is specific asset classes such as commodities, gold, oil, fixed income, and currencies. She also gave her opinion on the state of the bond market that we saw the day Trump put a pause on reciprocal tariffs. She claimed it was "very unusual". She also stated, "Macro outlook is a lot more uncertain than what is currently priced into equity markets right now". I believe this gives us insight into the current uncertainty that equity markets face. We are unable to tell exactly what is going on based on equity prices alone. A lot of eyes will be on future earnings for any indicators of a weakening economy.

-Ticker LVMH Moët Hennessy -- Louis Vuitton reported last Monday and was one of the first companies to show some economic impact, but it is unknown if it is a direct impact from tariffs. The luxury brand reported year over year revenue loss and missed revenue expectations by roughly 4 billion dollars. chief financial officer Cécile Cabanis said in a conference call, "The main swing factor is really linked to last year's Chinese demand in Japan." This seems to be a similar trend amongst many companies recently such as Nike, Apple, and Starbucks. This earnings report could be a signal toward consumer spending trends. The lack of revenue can display a greater shift in consumer spending away from luxury goods which hints to more uncertainty.