The Dividend Cafe - Wednesday - April 9, 2025

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Historic Market Surge and Trade Developments on April 9th In this episode, host Brian Szytel from The Bahnsen Group's Newport Beach office discusses a remarkable market upturn on April 9th. The Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ all saw significant gains, breaking a four-day decline and setting historic records. Szytel highlights the highest trading volume in Wall Street history, driven by easing trade tension talks between the US and China. He addresses the stability and dominance of the US Treasury market, downplays concerns about alternative global financial leaders, and provides insights into consumer spending indicators. Szytel advises viewers to maintain a long-term investment perspective amidst the volatility and focus on personal priorities. 00:00 Introduction and Market Overview 00:40 Historic Market Movements 01:39 Trade and Tariff Impacts 02:41 US Treasury Market Insights 03:34 Economic Indicators and Consumer Sentiment 04:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 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 to Dividend Cafe. This is Wednesday, April the 9th. Brian Seitel with you from our Newport Beach, California office here at the Bonson Group on quite a day in markets. To say the least, the Dow ended up closing up 2962 points. That's 7.87% just today. The S&P 500 was up 474 points, which is 9.52% just today.

The Nasdaq was up 1857 points. That's 12.16% just today. Goodness, just quite a day move. To put that in context, that was breaking a four day decline on the SMP. It was the best session since October of 2008, the month after I got married. And the NASDAq posted this best session

ever on record. So going back to January of 2001, the VIX was at 57, that's a volatility index, 57 is very high, the VIX was under 35. So huge dramatic collapse in volatility, huge shoot-up in stocks, and it definitely goes to show that trying to time around some of this stuff is really a poor way to try to approach this market, frankly, just to say the least. But let's put some things in context on the day. There was over 30 billion shares traded today.

That's the heaviest volume in the history of Wall Street. Now there's a lot more people and a lot more money, so you got to take the number of shares with context there. When we talk about dollar amounts or aggregate share amounts there, so there's some growth of the overall economy too. But all of this was around a 90-day pause on most countries that didn't retaliate on tariffs excluding China. He actually increased the tariff rate on China until they reach a deal up to 125%.

Some of the inference into this is that Navarro is going to be somewhat sidelined and perhaps Besant takes more of a front seat that be more friendly to markets if that were the case. But largely this is around trade and some undoing and some, I guess some give on the take that has been going on now for about a week and tariff announcements. Now what will actually be delivered, what will actually be negotiated, what will actually happen is still yet to be seen, but gosh, what a positive day overall in markets.

The other news was just the talk and the rhetoric around different deals. President Trump was speaking in a long press conference about China wanting to make a deal even, all the other countries, and that he was positive about some of those conversations markets obviously like that. But there you have it. The question in there it was about what would it take for the US to lose dominance in global markets. First off it would take a lot but the question was tilted more specifically towards the Treasury market and losing integrity. And the answer is the truth which is that it

definitely hasn't lost integrity. The treasury market is the most attractive and most liquid and transparent and risk-free investment that exists on the planet Earth. There may be different rate environments or inflation environments that cause bond prices to go up and down, but that's still where it is now. As far as who would take the mantle, I just would have to say it's all a relative game. Everything's tied together. There'd have to be another solution and there isn't one. Would it be the ECB debt? No. Would it be Japan? Would it be China? There really isn't something that is competitive in that front anytime soon. So I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that front. On the economic side, you did have wholesale inventories that were positive, but slightly

positive, a little bit less than expected. We got a 0.3% move. Wholesale inventories can be a forward-looking gauge in consumer spending. That number was from February, and it was just a tenth different than what was expected. I wouldn't read in that too much. It'll be interesting to see more of the March number, and frankly, not even that. It'll be interesting to see the April number because consumer Spending is closer tied to consumer sentiment. We know that has fallen off a cliff here in the past week and a half

So in the meantime stay tuned there goodness for everyone that remained invested and I hope that you did Today was one of those days you can probably think back in history and how many times the market has gone up like this. It really hasn't been much. In fact, we have had now five straight days where the trading range on the S&P, meaning the lowest of the day and then the highest on the day has been over 5% with today being double that basically. That has only happened in a couple of years. 1987, we all know the Black Friday when markets were down over 20%. 2008, of course, the onslaught of the financial crisis. And then of course, the global pandemic in 2020.

So some of these numbers and some of these statistics are real. This is going to be in the history books here for a day's move. But with all that excitement, I'm going to let you go for this evening and get back to what matters most, which is hopefully your life and your family and your friends and what you do for a living and what's important to you. Markets will continue to play out as they do, of course, tariff and trade on everyone's mind. And I wish I knew exactly how this would play out, but I don't,

because there could be an announcement tomorrow that dramatically changes even what happened today. So take this with a grain of salt, be confident and appreciative in your long-term strategy and worry less about the day to day and focus on those other things that I said qualitatively that matter more, what you do, what you love, and long-term goals. Reach out with questions. We encourage them at this point, please.

And we will get back to you and I'll be back with you tomorrow on Dividend Cafe. Thank you very much. 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 to Tyrion will

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