In this episode, Scott Becker breaks down nine key stories, including a sharp market drop triggered by new tariffs, shifting investment strategies from BlackRock’s Larry Fink, and major retail and tech stock declines.
Chapter 1: What are the key market movements reported this morning?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine stories we're following this morning. First, the markets are down this morning early by an astounding amount. The S&P by more than 3.5%, the NASDAQ 4%. Second, when I first look at the futures late last night, I literally thought it was a misprint. They were so far down.
Chapter 2: Why did the futures market drop sharply last night?
I haven't seen them that far down in a long time. But we'll see how it goes. Third, they're down because President Trump announced widespread tariffs late yesterday, and the markets are reacting very negatively. In the best-case scenarios, these become sort of a stance for negotiation, and some or many of these get rolled back.
Chapter 3: How are new tariffs announced by President Trump affecting the markets?
But right now, it's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. Fourth, in this changing economy, we've got a great webinar featuring Sales Empowerment Group coming up on growing revenues. Text Scott Becker, 773-766-5222 if you want to register for that. Fifth, Restoration Hardware, RH, is down 27% or so. Early this morning, I missed earnings. They do this incredible job of
Chapter 4: What upcoming webinar can help with growing revenues in a changing economy?
Chapter 5: Why did Restoration Hardware's stock drop significantly this morning?
touting all the things are going well, and then sort of a footnote as to how bad earnings are. They're really gamers in terms of this. They remind me sort of like, you know, Mrs. Lincoln, the play was great, other than your husband getting shot. That's how RH plays the PR game.
Sixth, Larry Fink is trying to move people from a 60-40 allocation to a 50-30-20, coincident with BlackRock trying to really move into the alternative asset world. We've got a separate podcast there. It's very fake, slippery, and we'll probably do another version of that today. It's just so fascinating to watch how he moves with the times. Seventh, big-name stocks like Apple are down a lot today.
Pre-market down 7%. Eighth, some of the big retail brands are also down more or less pre-market based on their dependence upon import, export, and overseas manufacturing. Adidas fell 10%. Nike's down 9%. Walmart's down 6%. We'll see how it goes. Nice. Congratulations to Evan Harwood, Paul Loeb, and team on what they've built at Maxwell Street Partners and Tyler Goldstein.
Recent sale of one of their portfolio companies, recent acquisition of another one, really hitting it well in their niche area that they're in. Just fantastic. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.