The Dividend Cafe - Thursday - July 10, 2025

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Market Recap and Earnings Outlook: Fundamentals Return to Focus In this episode of Dividend Cafe, recorded on Thursday, July 10, Brian Szytel discusses recent market movements and economic updates. After two days of market declines, the DOW Jones, S&P, and Nasdaq saw positive increases. The 10-year bond yield remained stable, while jobless claims data showed better-than-expected initial claims, although continuing claims edged higher. Brian highlights the shift back to earnings fundamentals, upcoming CPI data, and the onset of earnings season as key market drivers. He also discusses the bearish sentiment on the US dollar and precious metals. Additionally, Brian answers a question about Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for those turning 73 and provides a sneak peek of the long-form Dividend Cafe episode focused on a major legislative bill and its impacts. Tune in for a detailed market analysis and strategic insights. 00:00 Introduction and Market Overview 00:35 Economic Calendar and Jobless Claims 01:09 Earnings Season and Market Sentiment 02:08 Precious Metals and US Dollar Sentiment 02:47 Interest Rates and Earnings Expectations 03:46 Fundamentals and Market Sentiment 03:57 RMD Guidelines and Tax Implications 05:00 Upcoming Long Form Dividend Cafe 05:25 Conclusion and Viewer Engagement Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the Dividend Cafe weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. Welcome back to Dividend Cafe. This is Thursday, July the 10th, Brian Seitel with you here on a generally positive day overall in markets. So what we've got basically two down days of Monday and Tuesday and now two up days of Wednesday and Thursday to head into the quieter week here in weekend, at least on the economic calendar. But today the Dow Jones was up 192 points. S&P was up a quarter of a percent. NASDAQ was up marginally, a little above flat on the day. Tenure was almost even up about a

basis point to be closed at 435. So there there's your market movement. Economic calendar was fairly quiet. We had initial jobless claims that came out at 227. Consensus was for 238. So that's better than expected. You still have continuing claims that are edging a little higher. They actually beat consensus by the way, but they were, we're still tracking

levels on the higher end since we've seen since 2021. So continuing claims are a little sticky there, but initial jobless claims overall, fairly good. We're going to have bigger news on both CPI coming out on Tuesday. And then really we just kick into earning season, which is really the focus of what I wrote about today. Because I think fundamentals coming back into focus is frankly just refreshing. We've been talking about geopolitical issues with Israel and Iran.

We've been talking about tariff issues with different political machinations back and forth between the U S and trade policy. We've been talking about what's going to come through Congress on this big, beautiful bill and all these sorts of things. And what hasn't been spoken about as much as just, Hey, what are earnings? Where are markets trading? What does sentiment look like and how are earnings are going to come out here going forward and what's guidance going to be for Q3 and Q4?

Those are the things that are more important to me. They just haven't been front and center. So it's nice to see them come back here. I mean, we've got basically markets at all time highs. We didn't close at the highest for the day, but we were pretty darn close to them. And what we've seen really is volatility just come all the way back down to levels

that are quite calm, call it 16 on the VIX, is a pretty good market usually. Volatility meaning pretty low, but you still have extreme bullish sentiment in both the metals like gold and silver and shockingly, and I think that those that follow those precious metals, especially those that have owned them for the last 10, 15 or 20 years that have been patient are still very positive on them, but they've traded off the highs by quite a bit.

The bearishness on the U S dollar is at all time highs essentially. And I think all those things are a little overdone. I think they're behind the curve of what we're actually seeing in the economy, what we're actually seeing with earnings that are going to come out and what the backdrop actually is, because you do have the bill that has passed. You do have a lower interest rate backdrop coming into, call it September, which will come here in the flick of my fingers as far as a timeline goes and then you've got a pretty conservative

Expectation on where earnings are gonna come in meaning. It's not like we're expecting them to be very good We're actually expecting them to be bad That's a pretty good setup for them to exceed expectations and then you've just got sentiment overall in markets that remains very subdued. We're not, if you look at the bull bear ratio, we're not at levels that are consistent with euphoria or extreme animal spirits or everyone on one side of a trade, there's basically a mixed bull bear ratio here. So that's a good thing. That's a good setup for Q3, believe it or not, especially as a contrarian,

which I tend to be. And I'm not saying those things necessarily paint a picture of where I think the market's going to go in the next 30 days. I'm just saying for all of the doom and gloom that is out there and for whatever one to read about, those are some really good key points that I would keep in mind as to why markets are trading where they are. So like I said, short-term headlines matter. They can move markets. Long-term, it's always fundamentals. Fundamentals are coming back into focus here. That's definitely refreshing, refreshing thing that I appreciate. A question in there was about turning 73 years old and getting your RMD done in the calendar year or the following year.

And the way that works is essentially when you turn 73, yes, you've got to take your RMD for that calendar year. So let's say it was this year of 25, you owe one for 25 based on the year and 24 value, but you have until April of the following year to take it if you want. That's just the first year. If you do it that way though, you're going to end up with your 25 RMD distribution and your 26 both in the calendar year of 26. And that means that you're going to pay more in ordinary taxes, ordinary income taxes, and depending on where your bracket is, that may or may

not be what you want to do. So we typically, I would just stick to a calendar year regimen. You turn 73, take it that year for that year, the next year, that year for that year, someone that's so forth and not worried too much. There are definitely reasons, tax liabilities and different oscillations for different people of why you could shift that. But that's how that works. It's simple and complicated at the same time.

And believe it or not, over the last 23 years, it's a question that comes up every year. That's what we've got for you today. Again, tomorrow we're gonna have Long Form Dividend Cafe. It's a great one. I've got a sneak peek of it and you're gonna love it. This is all about what the one big, beautiful bill and what it means, positive and negative,

what it means for the deficit, what things were inside of it, what changes are for Medicaid and other spending programs, and I think you'll get a lot out of it. So you'll have that tomorrow in your inbox and then you'll hit your weekend. And I wish you a very good one. Please reach out with your questions as always, and then we'll be back with you next week on Dividend Cafe. Thanks for listening. The Bonson Group is a group of investment professionals registered with Hightower Securities LLC member FINRA and SIPC with Hightower Advisors LLC, a registered

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