The Dividend Cafe - Wednesday - April 2, 2025

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Daily Recap: Market Updates and Trump's Announcement In today's Daily Recap, David Bahnsen fills in for Brian Szytel to discuss key market movements and President Trump's significant announcement. The Dow rose by 235 points, the S&P increased by 0.66%, and the NASDAQ climbed nearly 1%. Treasury yields showed mixed performance, with the two-year yield up slightly. Consumer discretionary was the top sector performer, while consumer staples lagged. Crude oil prices also saw an uptick. President Trump's address from the Rose Garden introduced a 10% baseline tariff and a 50% reciprocal tariff, with details remaining ambiguous. The speech ended with a strong push for his tax cut bill, amid promises of no cuts to Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid. More detailed analysis is expected in the coming days. 00:00 Introduction and Host Update 00:24 Market Performance Recap 01:31 President Trump's Announcement 01:37 Analysis of Tariff Policies 02:29 Political Implications and Tax Cuts 04:11 Conclusion and Upcoming Content 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. Hello and welcome to the daily recap. This is David Bonson. I'm actually filling in for Brian Sightel with the daily because Brian is on airplane at the moment, but it also was a rather big day in terms of President Trump's long awaited announcement, which didn't come till after the market closed, keep in mind. But nevertheless, I just got done minutes ago listening to his almost hour long address

from the Rose Garden. So just quickly by recap, the Dow was up 235 points today, a little over half a percent. The S&P was up exactly two thirds of a percent, and the NASDAQ was up just less than one percent. The two year Treasury yield was up two basis points. The 10 year did not move closed at 4.16 percent. So it's obviously down quite a bit lately, but flat today. Top performing sector today was consumer discretionary, up over 2%. Consumer staples pretty much flat-ish, but down a little bit in the red. Crude oil up 1.4%, a little over $72 a barrel.

Both CEO and CFO corporate confidence surveys dramatically lower, almost to a kind of three-year low. And then the ADP payrolls number did beat expectations, 155,000 jobs, but that's the private sector payroll number. We'll get the non-farm payroll number from BLS on Friday. So what was the takeaway from President Trump's address? Bottom line, they said they're gonna do a 10% baseline tariff across the board. There have been times where he talked about 20, times they talked about 25. Today he came

out and said 10. Then there will be a reciprocal tariff of 50% of the amount that they have deemed other countries are charging us. And he held a chart up that showed what they believe all these other countries' tariff rates are, and he said they were going to charge half of that amount. Now, previously it said they were going to charge the full amount, and that the tariff calculation would include what are non-tariff barriers. At the end of the day there's still ambiguity as to what these numbers will be. Both the 50% reciprocity and the 10% baseline are lower than have been advertised before. There were a lot of other things said that were more political. It was mostly a campaign type oriented speech for those listening to try to get

extract some specific degree of policy. There's gonna need to be a little bit more analysis and that's what I'm gonna work on here as more and more comes because President Trump had no intention of giving that much more meat on the bone in this speech. Now the only thing I want to close with is that he did close his speech with really quite a robust pitch for his tax cut bill. On one hand he said there'd be no cuts to Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid. Even that is a little ambiguous because all we're really talking about is slowing the growth of Medicaid spending and that providing the spending cuts necessary to produce a budget reconciliation

that allows for tax cuts. So again, there's a little ambiguity as to what could be meant, but he did seem really firm on getting this done as one big bill. So I suspect that there will be some response to that because there has been a lot of desire for greater clarity around the presidential priority of these tax cuts. And I've already shared what my impression was coming back from my meetings at Treasury a couple weeks ago. President Trump personally reiterated some of that today. We'll see how futures respond in the hours to come, and of course, where markets are tomorrow. But more important to me will be digesting

where there is any clarity on policy and where there is ongoing ambiguity. I'll leave it there for now. Reach out with questions and we'll be back with you again for another daily recap tomorrow Thursday. I will have a full dividend cafe on Friday addressing the 10-year anniversary of the Bonson Group and lessons learned over the last 10 years. Thank you for listening to our daily recap. The Bonson Group is a group of investment professionals registered with Hightower Securities

LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, with Hightower Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Securities are offered through Hightower Securities LLC. Advisory services are offered through Hightower Advisors LLC. This is not an offer to buy or sell securities. No investment process is free of risk. There is no guarantee that the investment process or investment opportunities referenced herein will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of current

or future performance and is not a guarantee. The investment opportunities referenced herein may not be suitable for all investors. All data and information referenced herein are from sources believed to be reliable. Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices, or other information contained in this research is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. The Bonsall Group and Hightower shall not in any way be liable for claims and make no

expressed or implied representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of the data and other information, or for statements or errors contained in or omissions from the obtained data and information reference tier in. The data and information are provided as of the date referenced. Such data and information are subject to change without notice. This document was created for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed are solely those of the Bonson Group and do not represent those of Hightower Advisors LLC or any of its affiliates. Hightower Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. This material was not intended or written

to be used or presented to any entity as tax advice or tax information. Tax laws vary based on the client's individual circumstances and can change at any time without notice. Clients are urged to consult their tax or legal advisor for any related questions.