Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, closed the Sohn Investment Conference Monday. His investment advice: Bet on the changes in interest rates.
“The risk-reward has never been better,” Gundlach said.
The Fed raised interest rates four times last year before stepping on the brakes in 2019. The central bank is now leaving rates alone, instead sticking with a wait-and-see approach.
Gundlach described the Federal Reserve’s strategy as “policy fluidity.” It could change direction with little or no notice.
The valuations of companies in the industry are, in his words, “absurd.”
The winner of the Sohn Idea Contest, Tariq Barma, is betting against frozen potatoes.
Barma is shorting Lamb Weston (LW), a processor of frozen potato products with a $10 billion market cap. Barma says the company faces some real risk over the next year.
Potato farmers are expected to add 10 to 12% capacity over the next 12 months. That will put pressure on margins and hurt food processors as supply overwhelms demand, according to Barma.
The winner was announced at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. The contest awards “the most timely and actionable investment idea.”
Lamb closed up 0.6% today. But it has dropped 8.2% since the start of the year.
US stocks all but erased their massive losses from early Monday as investors tried to make sense of President Donald Trump’s latest trade threats.
Trump’s surprise threat on Sunday to impose higher tariffs on China shook bulls who expected a trade deal to come quickly. But some analysts say the odds still favor a resolution between Washington and Beijing.
Not all stocks enjoyed the afternoon rally. Nike (NKE), which was the Dow’s worst performer this morning, kept that distinction and finished down about 2.5%. Caterpillar (CAT) and Apple (AAPL) also each dropped more than 1.5%.
With less than half an hour until US markets close, Wall Street’s trade war freakout is fading as stocks rebound from an earlier plunge.
The Dow (DOW) was recently down just 45 points, or 0.17%. That represents a sharp recovery from a loss of as much as 471 points in early trading.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also slashed their losses.
Investors are trying to make sense of President Donald Trump’s surprise threat on Sunday to impose higher tariffs on China.
A former Goldman Sachs banker charged for his role in Malaysia’s multi-billion dollar embezzlement scandal pleaded not guilty in federal court.
Roger Ng, a Malaysian national, was arraigned in US federal court in Brooklyn after being sent to the United States to face charges that he conspired to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, Malaysia’s state investment fund. He’s also accused of paying bribes to foreign officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.
The US Justice Department claims that conspirators misappropriated $4.5 billion from the 1MDB fund, and has zeroed in on Goldman’s role in the scheme. Goldman has repeatedly claimed that it was misled by rogue employees who intentionally deceived its legal and compliance teams. Ng left Goldman in 2014.
Ng waived an extradition hearing in Malaysia in February.
His bond was set Monday at $20 million, and he was released. Ng was told to surrender his passport, and he will be kept in home detention with an electric monitoring device.
His next court date is May 23.
American retailers warned of higher prices on consumers and job losses if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 to 25%.
The National Retail Federation, the trade association for retailers, released a statement on Sunday criticizing Trump’s plan.
One retail analyst, Greg Melich of Evercore ISI, estimated that if tariffs rise to 25%, it would wipe out retail earnings growth for the next 12 months.
On Monday, most retail stocks fell during early afternoon trading.
Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), Best Buy (BBY) and Costco (COST) declined 1%. Lowe’s (LOW) and Williams Sonoma (WSM) fell 2%.
Glenview Capital Management’s Larry Robbins said US hospitals are a good buy during his presentation at the Sohn Investment Conference.
HCA Healthcare (HCA), Universal Health Services (UHS) and Tenet Healthcare (THC) are all trading at a discount despite their strong growth, he said.
HCA is only up 0.4% this year, while UHS has climbed 6.5%, according to Refinitiv. Tenet, meanwhile, is up more than 29%. For reference, the S&P 500 has gained nearly 17%.
Luckin Coffee, Starbucks’ biggest rival in China, is looking to raise more than half a billion dollars when it goes public in the United States, according to a filing the company issued with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.
The company announced plans for a US IPO last month.
China is Starbucks’ (SBUX) second-biggest market, after the United States, with around 3,000 stores across the country. It plans to more than double that number by the end of 2022.
But Luckin is catching up quickly — Luckin locations may soon outnumber Starbucks stores in China.
Luckin, which is about 18 months old, has opened more than 2,300 stores across China and plans to open another 2,500 by the end of this year. Most Luckin locations are “pick-up stores” with limited seating that are designed to let customers pick up their orders and leave quickly.
The chain has previously raised hundreds of millions dollars from big international investors including Blackrock (BKCC). Following the company’s April fundraising round, it was valued at about $2.9 billion.
— CNN’s Daniel Shane contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump, who last year called himself “Tariff Man,” was likely emboldened to reignite the trade war by recent signs of strength from the US economy.
The US GDP accelerated to 3.2% in the first quarter. The economy added a robust 263,000 jobs in April. And the unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%, the lowest since December 1969.
The stock market, meanwhile, has raced back to life after suffering its worst December since the Great Depression.
The good news is that analysts don’t believe renewed trade tensions will last long. They are just too costly for both sides.
In other words, while trade fears may be driving markets lower on Monday, a prolonged market and economic slump would eventually force Washington and Beijing to strike a deal.
Read more about the return of the Tariff Man from our Matt Egan.
At the Sohn Investment Conference, Greenlight’s David Einhorn was up first, starting out by reassuring the crowd that he still didn’t like Tesla (TSLA).
Einhorn started out with a slideshow of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s statements about his electric car company and concluded by saying “that’s horses**t”.
He didn’t say whether he was short Telsa.
Meanwhile, Einhorn said he believes aircraft leasing company AerCap (AER) is a good bet. AerCap is the industry leader with 11% market share, he said. As aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing (BA) have backlogs of multiple years, aircraft leasing companies step in to fill the gap as air travel continues to increase around the globe.
Einhorn said his fund was short GATX (GATX), the market-leading stand-alone railcar leasing company.
Greenlight Capital had its worst year ever in 2018: Its investments were down 34%. The S&P 500 fell just over 6% last year.
Stocks have recovered from their initial lows today, but they are still solidly in the red an hour and a half into trading.
Nike (NKE) is the worst performer in the Dow, having dropped 2.9%. Apple (AAPL) and 3M (MMM) are right behind Nike — they are down about 2% and 1.9%, respectively.
In the S&P 500, investment manager Affiliated Managers Group (AMG) is faring the worst — down 10.4% — after missing first quarter earnings projections.
Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI) shares are moving way higher in a sea of declines.
The stock is up nearly 30% the first trading day after it announced its $9.6 billion acquisition of 21 regional sports networks from Walt Disney Company (DIS) on Friday.
Investors appear to be bullish on the local TV owner’s plan to double down on live sports and news as it future-proofs itself against streaming competitors.
“While consumer viewing habits have shifted, the tradition of watching live sports and news remains ingrained in our culture,” Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said in a release.
Monday’s stock selloff wiped out some three weeks of gains in the Dow.
The Dow dropped 450 points at the open before recovering some of its losses. At mid-morning it was down roughly 280 points, or 1.1%.
Despite this dramatic start to the week, the Dow remains up 13.6% for the year. So for anyone who invested on December 31, these gains still look pretty good.
The strong jobs and GDP numbers could be why President Donald Trump is reigniting trade tensions between the United States and China.
“The trade hawks around him have always said, ‘The economy is strong. If we’re really going to fix this imbalance with China, we’ve got to do it now when the US economy can weather it,’” said CNN’s Christine Romans.
Romans noted that the trade talks originally had a March 1 deadline, but Trump extended it because the two sides were making progress. Now, she said, the president seems impatient.
“It sounds to me like he is frustrated that there are core structural issues that the Chinese haven’t moved far enough on, and he doesn’t want to blamed for taking a ‘headline win’ for a weak deal,” she said.
Watch more:
Only two of the thirty Dow stocks were higher Monday morning while the broader market fell – McDonald’s and oil giant Chevron. Exxon Mobil and Walmart were holding up reasonably well too.
Why weren’t big oil stocks, Walmart and Mickey D’s tumbling?
Chevron (CVX) likely rose more than 2% because it looks increasingly like it may not win an expensive bidding war for Anadarko Petroleum (APC) with Warren Buffett-backed Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Occidental boosted the amount of cash it is willing to spend as part of an Anadarko takeover on Sunday.
Chevron was also boosted by the fact that crude prices were relatively stable Monday – news that probably helped Exxon too.
As for McDonald’s (MCD), restaurant companies are often viewed as being more resistant to macro stock market trends. Consumers probably aren’t going to cut back on already affordable fast food even if the economy slows.
To that end, Wendy’s (WEN) and Burger King owner Restaurant Brands (QSR) were higher Monday too. Walmart rival Target (TGT) was down less than the overall market too.
McDonald’s and Walmart are also viewed as safer stocks because they pay healthy dividends. Two other Dow components that offer large dividend yields, Pfizer (PFE) and Dow (DOW), were flat on Monday too.
So much for investor complacency.
The VIX (VIX), a measure of volatility that often skyrockets during times when Wall Street is scared, soared more than 30% Monday morning to its highest level since late January.
The CNN Business Fear & Greed Index, which looks at the VIX and six other gauges of investor sentiment, fell as well. It dipped into “neutral” territory and was not far from the “fear” zone. It had been trading at “greed” levels on Friday.
And the price of gold, which also tends to rise when investors are nervous, was slightly higher as well.
US stocks started the day deep in the red after President Donald Trump threatened further tariffs on Chinese goods, derailing market hopes for a near-term trade deal.
Stocks in the industrial sector and those with tight ties to China fell.
Apple (AAPL) shares dropped 2.6%. Boeing (BA) and Caterpillar (CAT) both fell as well, trading 2.5% and 2.4% lower, respectively.
Billionaire Warren Buffett says the market declines are “rational” following the new flare up between China and the United States over trade.
In the same CNBC interview, Buffett said “if you went to bed a week ago and you thought there was a 1% chance of a trade war and then subsequent events make you think there’s a 10% chance, markets reflect that very quickly.”
Earlier today, Buffett said a new trade war would “be bad for the whole world.”
