Finance

“Individual investors have held tight, while institutional investors have panicked … individual investors trust President Trump,” Bessent said during a press briefing alongside White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Trump’s rollout and subsequent suspension of the highest tariffs on imports in generations fueled the worst sell-off in stocks since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that individual investors, who have largely been holding their positions through the recent market turmoil, have faith in President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.
“Individual investors have held tight, while institutional investors have panicked … individual investors trust President Trump,” Bessent said during a press briefing alongside White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“Vanguard, one of the largest money management firms in America, said that over the past 100 days, 97% of Americans haven’t done a trade,” Bessent, a former hedge fund CEO, said, citing a Washington Post story with the data.
Trump’s rollout and subsequent suspension of the highest tariffs on imports in generations fueled the worst sell-off in stocks since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The S&P 500 briefly tumbled into a bear market before recouping some of the losses, and the equity benchmark is now about 10% off its February all-time high.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 29, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News | Getty Images

During the depth of the April rout, retail investors swooped in to snap up stocks at depressed values. At the same time, hedge funds and professional traders ran for the exit while piling on bearish wagers against the market.
Institutions have grown increasingly worried that steep tariffs will weigh heavily on consumers and slow down the economy, possibly tipping it into a recession.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, now sees a summer recession hitting the U.S. as consumers start to see trade-related shortages in stores next month. Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, said Trump’s global trade fight risks spoiling the “brand” of the U.S. and tarnishing the allure of U.S. Treasury debt.

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SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said the fintech bank will bring back cryptocurrency investing after a “fundamental shift” in the regulatory landscape under the Trump administration.
SoFi was forced to drop crypto investing in late 2023 as part of becoming a regulated bank.
But after new guidance this year from the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the technology company is planning an aggressive push back into crypto, Noto told CNBC late Monday in an interview.

Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said the fintech bank will bring back cryptocurrency investing this year after a “fundamental shift” in the regulatory landscape under the Trump administration.
SoFi was forced to drop crypto investing in late 2023 as a condition of receiving a bank charter in a time of heightened federal scrutiny of digital assets. Customers, who had access to more than 20 crypto coins at the time, were either shunted to Blockchain.com or liquidated their holdings.

But after new guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the technology company is planning an aggressive push back into crypto, Noto told CNBC late Monday in an audio interview.
“We’re going to re-enter the crypto business, which we had to exit,” Noto said. “We’ll re-enter the business of allowing our members to invest in cryptocurrency. We want to actually make a bigger, more comprehensive push into cryptocurrency [this time], to include really providing crypto or blockchain capabilities in each product area that we have.”
The SoFi announcement is early proof that banks are looking to push further into crypto in the Trump era. In January, the CEOs of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley said their institutions were ready to get involved in crypto. At the same time, crypto firms including Circle and BitGo are planning to apply for bank charters or licenses, further blurring the lines between traditional and digital finance.
SoFi, which calls itself a “one-stop shop” for digital finance, on Tuesday posted first-quarter results that topped expectations, with the fastest revenue growth in more than a year. Unlike other companies being buffered by recession worries, SoFi also raised its guidance for 2025 revenue and earnings.

The fintech firm should be able to offer crypto investing by year-end, barring unforeseen circumstances, Noto said.

He specifically cited a recent letter “that basically said that OCC-regulated banks can operate in crypto businesses, and that is a fundamental shift in the regulatory landscape.”
The CEO said that he expected the current regulatory environment, in which Trump appointees rolled back restrictions around crypto and a regulatory framework for stablecoins is making its way through Congress, will allow the company to expand beyond investing.
Over the next six to 24 months, SoFi will look to adopt crypto or its underlying technology in all of the company’s major product lines, Noto said. That timeline could be accelerated with acquisitions, he added.
“Our aspirations are as broad as they are for any other product that we have, and we believe we can leverage the technology across lending and savings and spending and investing and protecting,” Noto said.
Future products could include borrowing cash based on the value of crypto held with SoFi, as well as using crypto in payments, Noto said. More

Germany’s largest lender Deutsche Bank on Tuesday posted higher-than-expected first-quarter profit as lenders in Europe’s largest economy navigate broader market turbulence instigated by U.S. tariff policies.
The performance was underpinned by a 10% jump in net revenues in the core investment banking division.
In a statement accompanying the results, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said the print “put us on track for delivery on all our 2025 targets” and marked “our best quarterly profit for fourteen years.”

A sign for Deutsche Bank AG at a bank branch in the financial district of Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. 
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Germany’s largest lender Deutsche Bank on Tuesday posted higher-than-expected first-quarter profit on robust investment banking performance, but upped credit provisions as lenders in Europe’s largest economy navigate turbulence amid U.S. tariff policies.
Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 1.775 billion euros ($2.019 billion) in the first quarter, up 39% year-on-year and above analyst expectations of around 1.64 billion euros, according to a Reuters poll. The bank reported profit of 106 million euros for the December quarter.

Revenues reached 8.524 billion euros over the period, up 10% year-on-year and above a $7.224-billion-euro result in the fourth quarter.
In a statement accompanying the results, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said the print “put us on track for delivery on all our 2025 targets” and marked “our best quarterly profit for fourteen years.”
The lender’s shares were up 2.5% at 08:11 a.m. London time, shortly after the market open.
Other fourth-quarter highlights included:

Profit before tax of 2.837 billion euros, up 39% year-on-year.
CET 1 capital ratio, a measure of bank solvency, was 13.8%, unchanged from the fourth quarter.
Post-tax return on tangible equity (ROTE) rate of 11.9%, against a 10% target for 2025.
Provision for credit losses was 471 million euros, versus 420 million euros in the fourth quarter, as the bank flagged “overlays relating to uncertainties in the geopolitical and macro-economic outlook in the U.S. together with first-quarter macro-economic and portfolio effects and model changes.”

The lender’s core investment banking division posted a 10% year-on-year hike in net revenues to 3.4 billion euros in the first quarter, with a 17% increase in the traditionally strong fixed income and currencies (FIC) unit partially offset by a 8% decline in origination & advisory.

Asset management net revenues picked up by 18% to 730 million euros in the first quarter.

Deutsche Bank has relied on its investment arm to bridge diminishing gains from loans as interest rates moved lower. The lender’s investment banking operations, the backbone of its growth, expanded by an annual 30% to 2.4 billion euros in the fourth quarter, also increasing 15% year-on-year to 10.6 billion euros across the whole of 2024.
“We see momentum across the businesses, and we think that’ll carry through for the rest of the year. We’re also maintaining expense discipline, and so we beat on both of those lines,” Deutsche Bank Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach on Tuesday.
“Overall a solid set of results, but perhaps not as strong as at first glance,” Citi analysts said in a note, flagging “core divisional trends are more mixed” and that the lender’s provision guidance “now includes a caveat for economic uncertainty.”

Policy impact

German banks stand to benefit as the country’s political environment settles under the potential stewardship of a centrist coalition led by the Christian Democratic Union’s Friedrich Merz, after upheaval in late 2024 culminated in snap elections earlier this year.
Berlin has since signed off on reforming its landmark debt fiscal policy with an eye for higher defense expenditure, waving in expectations of bolstered regional investment and giving a boost to German equities.
“We’re obviously dealing with a lot of uncertainty on the policy side of the minutes, but we also have some certainty, for example, on net interest income,” Von Moltke told CNBC, adding Deutsche Bank had hedged “almost all” of its interest rate risk for 2025, leaving it confident in the upcoming performance of its private bank unit.
“We see the momentum there to be strong. We also think that [the] corporate bank will… will pick up momentum as the year goes by and some of the policy changes, particularly in Germany, on the fiscal side, and that’s feeding into confidence flow through,” he said.
“In Germany, equity markets are actually getting stronger, so, underpinning the belief and faith of investors again more in the German and European economy and the incoming government and the policies they have laid out,” Deutsche Bank Americas CEO Stefan Simon had said in a Bloomberg TV interview last week. He noted that European competitiveness must be “strengthened” amid a broader wake-up call for the continent that is currently grappling with a potential trade war under U.S. President Donald Trump.
Under the White House’s latest protectionist measures, the European Union has been slapped with tariffs of 20%, although these are currently reduced to 10% until July 9 to pave the path for additional trade negotiations.  

“It’s fair to say that the U.S. and the Americas is one of the primary regions for Deutsche Bank, especially in growth expectations,” Simon said, adding that the bank sees growth potential in credit trading, rates and the M&A side of corporate finance.
Speaking the CNBC back in January, von Moltke had estimated that the lender’s operations in the U.S. accounted for roughly 20% of its business at the time, stressing that its operations in the region still had space to “deliver and crystallize in the future.”
On Tuesday, the CFO acknowledged current uncertainty in financial markets as a result of the U.S. tariff policies, which has benefitted the lender’s FIC trading operations — while seeping into its credit provisions guidance.
“On the credit loss provisions, we actually came in close to guidance,” he said with respect to the bank’s non-performing exposures. “What we did, though, was put on some overlays to reflect the unusual environment that we’re in and really anticipate potential sort of drift of the macro-economic variables. We think that’s prudent and appropriate, but where we land for the year will depend very much on the macro direction.” More

U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a television screen as traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on April 7, 2025 in New York City. 
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office are the worst for the stock market for the start of a president’s four-year term since the 1970s.
The S&P 500’s 7.9% drop from when Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20 through the April 25 close, is the second worst first 100-day performance going back to the beginning of President Richard Nixon’s second term, according to CFRA Research. Nixon saw the S&P 500 tumble 9.9% in 1973, after a series of economic measures he took to combat inflation resulted in the 1973 to 1975 recession. Nixon would later resign in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal.

On average, the S&P 500 rises 2.1% in the first 100 days for any president, in data of postelection years going from 1944 through 2020, CFRA showed.

The severity of the stock drawdown to start Trump’s presidency stands in marked contrast to the initial euphoria following his November election victory, when the S&P 500 surged to all-time highs amid confidence the former businessman would bring about much hoped for tax cuts and deregulation. From Election Day to Inauguration Day, the S&P 500 advanced 3.7%, CFRA data shows.
The rally sputtered and then dove sharply as Trump used his early days in office to push forth other campaign promises that investors had taken less seriously, particularly an aggressive approach to trade that many worry will raise inflation and push the U.S. into a recession.
In April, the S&P 500 took a nosedive, losing 10% in just two days and briefly entering bear market territory, following Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff announcement. Trump then walked back part of that announcement, giving countries a 90-day pause to renegotiate deals, that soothed some of investors’ concerns. Many worry there’s further downside ahead.
“Everyone’s looking for this bottom here,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac. “I’m still thinking it’s a bear market rally, a near-term bounce kind of thing. I’m not convinced we’re out of the woods yet, with the lack of clarity and continuing uncertainty in Washington.”

Stock chart icon

S&P 500 since Jan. 17 close

The S&P 500, which reached a closing high of 6,144.15 on Feb. 19, ended Friday at 5,525.21. It has erased all postelection gains from November.
To be sure, Trump has two more trading days to cut his losses. His first 100 days technically end on Tuesday. If the S&P 500 rallies this week, he could get close to the third worst start — the 6.9% decline during the first 100 days of George W. Bush in 2001. More

Lower-income earners are reining in their transactions to focus on essentials, while the wealthy continue to spend freely on perks including dining out and luxury travel, according to first-quarter results from U.S. credit card lenders.
Synchrony, which provides store cards for retail brands including Lowe’s and T.J. Maxx, spending fell 4% in the first three months of the year, the company said last week.
That compares to a 6% spending jump at American Express and a similar rise at JPMorgan Chase, both of which cater to wealthier users with higher credit scores.

Shoppers walk through the King of Prussia Mall, as global markets brace for a hit to trade and growth caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose import tariffs on dozens of countries, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 3, 2025.
Rachel Wisniewski | Reuters

America, at the start of 2025, is a tale of two consumers.
Lower-income earners are reining in their transactions to focus on essentials, while the wealthy continue to spend freely on perks including dining out and luxury travel, according to first-quarter results from U.S. credit card lenders.

As anxiety from the opening salvos of President Donald Trump’s trade policies rippled through the country in recent months, investors and economists have wondered whether declines in consumer sentiment would spill into the real economy. There are some early signs of stress among those who are already more economically vulnerable.
For instance, at Synchrony, which provides store cards for retail brands including Lowe’s and T.J. Maxx, spending fell 4% in the first three months of the year, the company said last week.
That compares to a 6% spending jump at American Express and a similar rise at JPMorgan Chase, both of which cater to wealthier users with higher credit scores than Synchrony. AmEx said its customers spent 7% more on dining and 11% more on first class and business class airfare than a year earlier.
While the “consumer is still in pretty good shape” overall, they are “being selective around how they spend,” Synchrony CEO Brian Doubles told analysts on April 22.
Lower-income card users in particular “started tapering their spend about a year ago,” pulling back on discretionary and big ticket expenses as inflation ate into their buying power, Doubles said.

Falling behind

More Americans were already falling into debt while using their credit cards in the fourth quarter. The share of credit card users making only minimum monthly payments rose to 11.1%, the highest level in 12 years, according Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia data released this month.
But so far, credit card lenders catering to wealthier customers have been insulated from concerns about how tariffs, inflation and a possible recession later this year could impact consumer spending.
“It’s fair to say that the high end has held up better, and the low end has pulled back more,” Brian Foran, a Truist analyst covering banks, said in an email. “It’s been a common theme both speaking to credit card companies, and hearing from most of my colleagues covering consumer and retail.”
The split was also visible at Citigroup, a major player in the credit industry. While spending in the division that provides cards for retailers fell 5% in the quarter, plastic that carries the bank’s own brand — a cohort with higher credit scores — saw spending rise 3%.
Both Citigroup and Bread Financial, another provider of store and co-branded cards like Synchrony, said that consumer behavior shifted toward essentials and away from travel and entertainment on concern that tariffs would raise prices for some goods.
The dynamic boosts spending now, but it could mean weaker demand in the future.
“Consumers are buying more electronics, home furnishing, auto parts,” Bread CFO Perry Beberman said last week.
People are “trying to figure out, are they still going to buy that big TV or are they going to make some other choices if inflation comes through at some of the rates they could,” Beberman said. “That’s the real wildcard here.” More

Chinese manufacturers are pausing production and turning to new markets as the impact of U.S. tariffs sets in, according to companies and analysts.
The lost orders are also hitting jobs and forcing Chinese exporters to try livestreaming at home.
Some companies have already built businesses on other trade routes from China.

Textile manufacturing workers in Binzhou, Shandong, China, on April 23, 2025.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese manufacturers are pausing production and turning to new markets as the impact of U.S. tariffs sets in, according to companies and analysts.
The lost orders are also hitting jobs.

“I know several factories that have told half of their employees to go home for a few weeks and stopped most of their production,” said Cameron Johnson, Shanghai-based senior partner at consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions. He said factories making toys, sporting goods and low-cost Dollar Store-type goods are the most affected right now.
“While not large-scale yet, it is happening in the key [export] hubs of Yiwu and Dongguan and there is concern that it will grow,” Johnson said. “There is a hope that tariffs will be lowered so orders can resume, but in the meantime companies are furloughing employees and idling some production.”
Around 10 million to 20 million workers in China are involved with U.S.-bound export businesses, according to Goldman Sachs estimates. The official number of workers in China’s cities last year was 473.45 million.

Over a series of swift announcements this month, the U.S. added more than 100% in tariffs to Chinese goods, to which China retaliated with reciprocal duties. While U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday asserted trade talks with Beijing were underway, the Chinese side has denied any negotiations are ongoing.
The impact of the recent doubling in tariffs is “way bigger” than that of the Covid-19 pandemic, said Ash Monga, founder and CEO of Guangzhou-based Imex Sourcing Services, a supply chain management company. He noted that for small businesses with only several million dollars in resources, the sudden increase in tariffs might be unbearable and could put them out of business.

He said there’s so much demand from clients and other importers of Chinese products that he’s launching a new “Tariff Help” website on Friday to help small business find suppliers based outside China.

Livestreaming

The business disruption is forcing Chinese exporters to try new sales strategies.
Woodswool, an athleticwear manufacturer based in Ningbo, near Shanghai, quickly turned to selling the clothes online in China via livestreaming. After launching the sales channel about a week ago, the company said it’s received more than 30 orders with gross merchandise value of more than 5,000 yuan ($690).
It’s a small step toward salvaging lost business.
“All our U.S. orders have been canceled,” Li Yan, factory manager and brand director of Woodswool, said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
More than half of production once went to the U.S., and some capacity will be idle for two to three months until the company is able to build up new markets, Li said. He noted the company has sold to customers in Europe, Australia and the U.S. for more than 20 years.
The venture into livestreaming is part of an effort by major Chinese tech companies, at the behest of Beijing, to help exporters redirect their goods to the domestic market.
Woodswool is selling its products online through Baidu, whose search engine app also includes a livestreaming e-commerce platform. Li said he chose the company’s virtual human livestreaming option since it allowed him to get up and running within two weeks, without having to spend time and money on renovating a studio and hiring a team.
Baidu said it has worked with at least several hundred Chinese businesses to launch domestic e-commerce channels after this month announcing it would provide subsidies and free artificial intelligence tools — such as its “Huiboxing” virtual humans — for 1 million businesses. The virtual humans are digitally recreated versions of people that use AI to mimic sales pitches and automate interactions with customers. The company claimed that return on investment was higher than that of using a human being.

Domestic market challenges

E-commerce company JD.com was one of the first to announce similar support, pledging 200 billion yuan ($27.22 billion) to buy Chinese goods originally intended for export — and find ways to sell them within China. Food delivery company Meituan has also announced it would help exporters distribute domestically, without specifying an amount.
However, $27.22 billion is only 5% of the $524.66 billion in goods that China exported to the U.S. last year.
“A few businesses have told us that under 125% tariffs, their business model is not workable,” Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told reporters Friday. He also noted more competition among Chinese companies in the last week.
Tariffs from both countries will likely remain in place at a certain level, with exemptions for certain tariffs, Hart said. “That’s exactly what they’re backing into.”
Products branded and developed for a suburban U.S. consumer might not directly work for a Chinese apartment dweller.
Manufacturers have gone directly to Chinese social media platforms Red Note and Douyin, the local version of TikTok, to ask consumers to support them, but fatigue is growing, pointed out Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, a China marketing consultancy.

Looking outside the U.S.

Fewer and fewer Chinese companies are considering diverting exports to the U.S. through other countries, given rising U.S. scrutiny of transshipments, she said. Dudarenok added that many companies are diversifying production to India over Southeast Asia, while others are turning from U.S. customers to those in Europe and Latin America.
Some companies have already built businesses on other trade routes from China.
Liu Xu runs an e-commerce company called Beijing Mingyuchu that sells bathroom products to Brazil. While his business has run into challenges from fluctuating exchange rates and high container shipping costs, Liu said he expects trade with Brazil will ultimately not be that affected by China’s tensions with the U.S.
China’s exports to Brazil have doubled between 2018 and 2024, as have China’s exports to Ghana.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ghana-based Cotrie Logistics was founded to help businesses with sourcing, coordinate shipments amid port delays and build dependable logistics routes, said CEO Bright Tordzroh. The company primarily works in trade between China and Ghana and now makes $300,000 to $1 million annually, he said.
The U.S.-China trade tensions have led many companies to explore sourcing and manufacturing locations outside the United States, Tordzroh said, which he hopes can create more opportunities for Cotrie.

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The stock market bounce last week showed once again just how dependent Wall Street has become on the whims of the White House. Case in point: The S & P 500 sank more than 2% this past Monday as President Donald Trump was attacking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and providing scant details on tariff talks. Then on Tuesday , things started to turn around. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there “will be a de-escalation” in the trade war with China. It was the first day of what turned out to be a three-session rally for the S & P 500. Wednesday ‘s gains were fueled after Trump said he would not fire Powell and softened his stance on China. Thursday ‘s advance came despite China saying no trade talks were going on with the U.S., and the White House saying otherwise. The market finished higher Friday . When it was all said and done, the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq gained 4.6% and 6.7% , respectively, for the week. Nasdaq’s outsized advance last week put it in the green for the month with just three trading days left in April. Our tech stock standouts last week included Broadcom ‘s 12.5% gain and CrowdStrike ‘s 13% advance. The broader market S & P 500, however, was still down 1.5% in April as health care and materials continued to struggle this month. For the week, the Dow rose 2.5%, but that did not put much of a dent in the 30-stock average’s 4.5% monthly decline. .SPX .DJI,.IXIC YTD mountain S & P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq YTD Earnings from consumer-facing companies last week confirmed what the monthly consumer surveys have been reporting: People are worried about the economy and inflation and are not spending as freely. On Friday, the University of Michigan’s final look at April consumer sentiment was a bit better than the prior release on both feelings about the economy and inflation. However, the readings were still dismal. Four Club names delivered their quarterly report cards last week. Depressed Danaher on Tuesday showed signs of life , and the stock picked up nearly 5.5%. The theme of Capital One’s quarter, also out Tuesday, was resilient credit quality heading into next month’s completion of its purchase of credit card company and payment network Discover Financial. Capital One soared more than 12% last week. It was our biggest winner. The portfolio’s other financial stocks — Wells Fargo , Goldman Sachs , and BlackRock — also performed well last week. On Thursday, we lowered our price target on Bristol Myers Squibb because the financials did not resolve lingering issues for the stock, which lost 2.7% for the week. Guidance from Dover , also out Thursday, was prudently conservative , and the market rewarded the stock. Dover shares rose 5% for the week. We sent out four trade alerts last week. On Monday, we made good on Jim Cramer’s call earlier this month to lighten up on Apple and Nvidia because they are so hard to own in Trump’s second administration due to U.S. tensions with China. Apple and Nvidia gained ground last week — more than 6% and 9%, respectively. We also bought more shares of Capital One before the earnings pop because we felt the stock on Monday should have done better following regulator approval for its Discover deal. On Tuesday, we bought more shares of BlackRock and Dover before they jumped last week. We also added to our Starbucks position, which perked up last week but was still losing roughly 15% in April on all the back and forth on China trade talks. We trimmed Linde on Thursday. Shares of the industrial-focused name have been resilient throughout the market turmoil and have maintained gains. There’s plenty on the economic calendar in the week ahead, with pivotal releases on both sides of the Fed’s dual policy mandate of maximum employment (jobs) and price stability (inflation). In that sense, the data in the coming days carries implications for the central bank’s future moves on interest rates and investors’ understanding of where the U.S. economy stands during the trade war more generally. In addition to the usual weekly jobless claims data on Thursday, there are three major labor market reports on tap. Job, jobs, jobs The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for March is due out Tuesday morning. The closely watched release, known as JOLTS, measures the tightness or slack in the jobs market. That provides clues on whether businesses are looking to hire and potential wage inflation. As of Friday, the consensus estimate is 7.47 million job openings, according to FactSet. On Wednesday morning, payroll processing firm ADP’s look at private job creation is slated for release. Economists expect private employers added 150,000 jobs in April, a month marked by tariff uncertainty, according to FactSet. ADP is generally seen as a preview of the U.S. government’s official jobs report, though it’s hardly a perfect harbinger. Friday brings that official government jobs data. The nonfarm payrolls report for April also is expected to show the U.S. added 150,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate staying unchanged from the prior month at 4.2%, according to FactSet. Of course, the impact of tariffs on hiring is a key question. Whether the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce shows up in a material way is another question. In the March report, government positions dropped by just 4,000 . Inflation check The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge is set to be released Wednesday morning, with economists expecteding that the PCE index rose 2.6% year over year in March and 0.1% on a sequential basis. It bears repeating that this report is for March, so it was before Trump’s steep “reciprocal” tariffs briefly went into effect – then were paused while 10% baseline tariff on most trading partners was left in place. Nevertheless, the personal consumption expenditures index will shine a light on where price pressures in the economy stood before tariffs heated up. Inflation has remained above the Fed’s 2% target, and central bankers are waiting to see the inflationary impacts of tariffs. Earnings On top of the busy week of jobs and inflation data, the earnings calendar is jam-packed inside and outside the portfolio. We have 10 Club names reporting — headlined by four Big Tech holdings — while other influential companies in the market include Visa on Tuesday, Caterpillar on Wednesday, and Mastercard and McDonald’s on Thursday. Here’s what to watch for when our portfolio names report, along with sales and revenue estimates courtesy of LSEG. All other estimates are from FactSet. Honeywell is the first of the Club stocks to report on Tuesday morning, and as an industrial company with economic sensitivity, the trade war’s impact on customer orders will be a big focus. It’s worth noting: The company’s 2025 guidance offered in early February was already conservative. Its impending breakup into three standalone companies will be another topic of conversation. LSEG estimates: revenue of $9.59 billion and EPS: $2.21. Starbucks on Tuesday night is all about whether CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround efforts are showing further signs of progress after its last quarter showed early indications that they were. Will they help the coffee chain break its four-quarter streak of declining same-store sales? The current consensus on Wall Street is for a decline of 0.8%. The weakening consumer may have hurt Starbucks during the period (and also could weigh on its outlook). Finally, updates on its China strategy and whether it’s facing anti-American backlash in that struggling market will be noteworthy. LSEG estimates: revenue of $8.86 billion and EPS of 50 cents. The biggest questions around Meta Platforms ‘ report after Wednesday’s close: How did its bread-and-butter advertising perform during the quarter as tariff-driven economic uncertainty started to bubble up, and how have more recent trade war developments changed advertisers’ behavior, particularly China-based businesses, if at all? The second theme is Meta’s AI spending plans in the face of elevated uncertainty. Is CEO Mark Zuckerberg standing by its $60 to $65 billion capital expenditures guidance? LSEG estimates: revenue of $41.39 billion and EPS: $5.28. The conversation on AI spending also will be playing out on Microsoft’s earnings call on Wednesday night. For roughly two months now, questions have been swirling about Microsoft’s data center expansion leases, with various reports of lease cancelations and pauses. Hopefully, analysts and investors alike get further clarity on this and the company’s capex intentions more broadly. The most important metric in the report is Azure cloud growth for both the January-to-March period and guidance for the current quarter. LSEG estimates: revenue of $68.44 billion and EPS: $3.22. Shares of Linde , which reports Thursday morning, have acted quite defensively this year for a company sensitive to economic growth. The nature of Linde’s localized industrial gas business makes it so its impact is more indirect — in other words, if an uncertain macro forces its customers to pull back their production, then Linde could see that show up in its volumes. The comforting thing for investors is that Linde’s management team is known for its conservatism with its guidance, and a weaker U.S. dollar could also be a tailwind to earnings growth. LSEG estimates: revenue: of $8.24 billion and EPS: $3.92. For Eli Lilly ‘s results on Thursday morning, the most important drugs remain Zepbound for obesity and Mounjaro for obesity, and analysts see them generating combined revenues of $6.06 billion in the quarter. This time around, though, Lilly’s call may spend a lot more time away from the GLP-1 market, with tariffs and the evolving regulatory regime in Washington — ranging from drug-price negotiations to industry critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s top health official — as being major discussion points. To be sure, pipeline commentary, especially expectations for its GLP-1 pill , also will be influential. LSEG estimates: revenue: $12.67 billion and EPS: $3.05. Tariffs will be the dominant story on Thursday night when Apple reports. We’ll finally hear directly from CEO Tim Cook on how the company has responded thus far on production and plans to proceed from here, given it is currently exempt from the most aggressive tariffs on Chinese imports but still faces the looming threat of electronics-specific duties. Last Tuesday, new data showed that American consumers are prepared to remain loyal to the iPhone. On Friday, Reuters reported Apple is trying to make most of its U.S.-sold iPhones in India by the end of 2026. The other main angle is how tariffs have changed customer behavior. Did a lot of purchases get pulled into March quarter to beat tariff price hikes, leading to more subdued demand in the current quarter? LSEG estimates: revenue of $94.3 billion and EPS: $1.62. Amazon ‘s forward commentary on how the tariffs are affecting its ecommerce, Amazon Web Services and advertising businesses will carry greater weight than the first-quarter results themselves. On the retail side, have customers been stocking up to beat tariffs, and how is the company handling supply? Are sellers hiking their prices ? For AWS, is the uncertain environment changing customers’ consumption habits and IT budgets at all? Of course, analysts also will press on Amazon’s data center and AI spending strategy . On the ad front, Amazon has exposure to China-based marketers, like Meta, and weaker consumer spending could generally pressure ad spending. Profitability is a key watch item, too. LSEG estimates: revenue of $154.92 billion and EPS: $1.36. When DuPont reports Friday morning, investors will be in search of updates on what the tariffs mean for customer demand — spanning industries such as electronics, automotive and construction — rather than the company’s own import exposure. DuPont’s business in China, which is almost a fifth of its sales, will be a big focus, and executives will surely get questions about Beijing’s investigation into the firm . DuPont’s electronics spinoff planned for later this year figures to be discussed, as well. LSEG estimates: revenue of $94.3 billion and EPS of 95 cents. Rounding out the week alongside DuPont on Friday morning is electrical equipment supplier Eaton , which has seen its stock hit hard this year as investors questioned the sustainability of data center investments. That crucial business will be a topic of conversation, as well as the company’s direct tariff exposure and the secondary effect on customer demand in businesses including automotive. Order growth, project backlog and margins are important metrics to watch. LSEG estimates: revenue of $6.26 billion and EPS of $2.70. Week ahead Monday, April 28 Dallas Fed’s Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey Before the bell: Roper Technologies (ROP), Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) After the close: Cadence Design Systems (CDS), Rambus (RMBS), NXP Semiconductor (NXPI), Nucor (NUE), Waste Management (WM), Noble Corporation (NE), Leggett & Platt (LEG) Tuesday, April 29 Census Bureau’s Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey at 8:30 a.m. ET The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey at 10 a.m. ET Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: UPS (UPS), Honeywell (HON) , General Motors (GM), Pfizer (PFE), Coca-Cola (KO), JetBlue (JBLU), PayPal (PYPL), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Hilton Hotels (HLT), Deutsche Bank (DB), Adidas (ADS), Spotify (SPOT), Brinker International (EAT), Royal Caribbean (RCL) After the bell: Visa (V), Booking Holdings (BKNG), Starbucks (SBUX) , Mondelez International (MDLZ), Caesars Entertainment (CZR), PPG Industries (PPG), Expand Energy (EXE) Wednesday, April 30 ADP’s Employment Survey at 8:15 a.m. ET Gross Domestic Product, First Quarter Advance Estimate at 8:30 a.m. ET Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index at 10 a.m. ET National Association of Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Caterpillar (CAT), Humana (HUM), GSK (GSK), Barclays (BCS), Airbus (AIR), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), GE Healthcare (GEHC), Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), International Paper (IP), Wingstop (WING), ADP (ADP) After the bell: Qualcomm (QCOM), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), eBay (EBAY), Robinhood (HOOD), Teladoc Health (TDOC), KLA Corp (KLA), MGM Resorts (MGM), Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP) Thursday, May 1 Initial Jobless Claims at 8:30 a.m. ET ISM’s Manufacturing PMI at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Eli Lilly (LLY), Linde (LIN), CVS Health (CVS), McDonald’s (MCD), Mastercard (MA), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Shake Shack (SHAK), Sirius XM (SIRI), Harley-Davidson (HOG), Biogen (BIIB), Moderna (MRNA), Wayfair (W), Cardinal Health (CAH), Roblox (RBLX) After the bell: Amgen (AMGN), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Roku (ROKU), Airbnb (ABNB), Block (XYZ), Motorola Solutions (MSI), Juniper Networks (JNP), Mohawk Industries (MHK), U.S. Steel (X), Reddit (RDDT), Live Nation (LYV), Stryker (SYK), EOG Resources (EOG), Ingersoll Rand (IR) Friday, May 2 April Nonfarm Payrolls Report at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: Chevron (CVX), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Eaton (ETN), Cigna (CI), DuPont (DD), FuboTV (FUBO), Wendy’s (WEN), Shell (SHEL), T. Rowe Price (TROW), Apollo Global Management (APO) Saturday, May 3 Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

A security guard works outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) before the Federal Reserve announcement in New York City, U.S., September 18, 2024. 
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

The stock market bounce last week showed once again just how dependent Wall Street has become on the whims of the White House. More

FROM KALININGRAD to Vladivostok, something has changed. A high-frequency index produced by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggests that, since the end of last year, Russia’s annualised economic growth has fallen from around 5% to around zero (see chart). VEB, the Russian development bank, finds similar trends in its estimate of monthly growth. A high-frequency measure of business turnover compiled by Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, has dipped. Although more circumspect, the government acknowledges that something is up. In early April the central bank noted that recently “a number of sectors recorded lower output because of plummeting…demand”. More