(New York)

Stocks woke up to a volatility explosion this morning. President Trump made a surprise announcement that he was considering boosting tariffs on China. Specifically, the president threatened to raise tariffs to 25%. Beijing is reportedly infuriated. The comments come towards the end of what seemed to be a smooth negotiation with Beijing about a new trade package. Therefore, they riled markets to a major extent. Headline indexes shed a couple percent at peak (so far) and sectors like technology and industrials sold off sharply. The trade delegation from Beijing is still expected to attended a planned tariff meeting this week.

FINSUM: It is very hard to know how significant this is (whether Trump actually wants to do this), or whether this is just a negotiating tactic.

(New York)

Barron’s has interviewed some of the top financial advisors in the country to figure out how they incorporate ETFs into their portfolios. We thought our readers might be curious. Raj Sharma, from ML, said that he thinks ETFs are just a tool and that active management still has a big role to play, especially in emerging markets and small caps. One top advisor, for whom ETFs comprise 50% of their business, says they use options bets against ETFs, something you can’t do with active funds. Another top advisor from ML, Peter Rohr, summarized ETFs nicely, saying: “ETFs allow us to control the controllable. We can control fees, we can control taxes, and we can control risk level”.

FINSUM: ETFs are a very flexible, and largely inexpensive product, facts which explain their explosive growth. However, that flexibility also means it takes strategy to put them to their best use.

(New York)

Millennials are the largest generation in the US and are primed to start entering their peak earning and spending years in the next decade. The oldest of the group is now 38, and thus entering prime home buying and spending time. Consumers usually see their spending peak in their 30s and 40s and taper in their 50s. With that in mind, here are some stocks (2 niche plays, 3 big companies) that could really gain from Millennial spending growth: Zuora (cloud based subscription payments provider), Lovesac (specialist furniture maker), Home Depot, Nike, and Farfetch (online luxury clothes retailer).

FINSUM: Boomers’ spending is fading, and Gen X is smaller, so Millennial spending is what is going to drive the consumer space.

(New York)

The trade war seems to be back on with full force. Trump spooked markets today by warning that he may impose higher tariffs on China. With that in mind, here are the stocks and sectors most at risk of big selloffs. Industrials and technology shares are the most vulnerable to tariff worries. It is difficult to say what stocks will be most affected because the potential impacts are widespread. However, the following list looks very at-risk: Colfax, Danaher, Emerson Electric, Fortive, Gates Industrial, 3M, and Kennametal.

FINSUM: We are very early in the volatility for this round of trade fears. Hopefully this minor panic will be the extent of it.

(Washington)

Not to be outdone by the DOL, the SEC made some comments on its forthcoming Best Interest Rule yesterday. SEC chief Clayton has been tightlipped about the rule and its updates, but yesterday said that it would be out soon, likely much sooner than expected. The expectation has been that the SEC would debut the rule in the fall, but speaking on timelines Clayton said “Wait and see … You won't have to wait long”. Reporters taking note of the comment say he suggested the final rule was imminent.

FINSUM: We bet some unveiling of the final rule happens before Memorial Day. This means the DOL’s updated rule is likely coming very soon as well, as they are working in concert.

(Washington)

Investors, take a deep breath, everything about the rate outlook has changed in the last 36 hours. For the first quarter of this year, investors thought we were on an inevitable course for rate cuts as the Fed appeared highly dovish. Then the last two days happened. First, Fed chief Powell delivered a much more hawkish speech than expected, saying that the factors that were holding inflation down were just “transitory”. Then, jobs data this morning blew everyone away with 263,000 jobs created in April.

FINSUM: We think these two factors are a big deal. It is very far from clear the Fed is going to cut (we think the risks are now skewed toward a hike). What makes this worrying is that a lot of the rally this year has been predicated on a dovish Fed.

(New York)

Gold had a great start to the year, but has since fallen back and is now down 1% in 2019. That’s said, there are some encouraging signs. Global demand for gold rose 7% from a year ago in Q1, and inflows to gold ETFs rose 49% versus the same stretch in 2018. Summer is a seasonally weak period for gold, but the metals outlook is going to be highly dependent on central bank action.

FINSUM: To be honest, we do not see a bullish scenario for gold right now. There are neither worries about an economic meltdown or high inflation, so the two big drivers for gold to move sharply aren’t there.

(Los Angeles)

In what comes as a really eye-opening turn of events even for someone as outlandish as Masayoshi Son, SoftBank has announced a plan to IPO its $100 bn Vision Fund. The fund is already legendary, having invested $100bn in just two years in some of the world’s biggest startups. It currently holds positions in WeWork and Uber, for instance. Masayoshi Son is now raising for capital for another fund, so wants to access some liquidity from this first one, thus the plan to IPO.

FINSUM: This is a bonkers plan, but honestly, and interesting opportunity for investors to own pieces of some very exclusive private companies. This is like an early stage Berkshire Hathaway.

(Washington)

In what comes as very disappointing news to many advisors, the DOL has just confirmed worst fears—it is officially bringing the fiduciary rule back. The DOL mentioned this idea in passing last year, but not given formal word on it. However, speaking before Congress yesterday, DOL chief Acosta confirmed that the fiduciary rule was coming back and that the agency was coordinating with the SEC. Acosta declined to give a timeline, but late this year is the anticipated unveiling of the new rule. According to one industry commentator, "We see this as a positive for financial advisers and active [investment] management as the Labor standard is unlikely to include class-action liability”.

FINSUM: It is too early to know if this is good news or bad because no one has clarity on what the DOL is doing. That said, our instinct is the new rule will be less onerous than previously.

(New York)

There has been a lot of anger (and even legal action) about the big declines Lyft has seen since its IPO. The questions around publicly traded companies worth tens of billions of Dollars with annual losses of billions of Dollars are only growing more intense as Uber readies for its IPO. The big question is what investors should do about the stocks—stay away or buy in? TrimTabs Asset Management has some very salient thoughts on the issue. TrimTabs specializes in free cash flow oriented products and lent their expertise to this question. They conducted an in-depth study of how post-IPO companies with negative free cash flow, and negatively trending free cash flow, perform versus those with positive FCF. The results were stark, and in all instances showed major outperformance of FCF positive companies. For instance, over a 12-month horizon following IPO, $1 bn+ companies with positive FCF outperformed those with negative FCF by almost 16%, with the latter averaging losses of 6.41%.

FINSUM: This analysis from TrimTabs could not be more timely or insightful. We think it might be smart to stay away from Uber and Lyft until they at least have a clear path to profitability.