May 2, 2025 • 7 mins
Larry Mendte and Caleb Silver talk about the significance of today's jobs report, which has grown this week after data showed the economy shrank in the first quarter.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's talk about the tariffs and the uncertainty that
that brings. And whenever there's uncertainty that is going to
affect the stock market, we've seen the up and down
and up and down over the last couple of weeks.
Let's talk about it with Caleb Silver, who is ABC
News contributor and editor in chief of Investipedia New York.
(00:21):
Thanks so much, Caleb, good morning, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It is the uncertainty, isn't it? More than anything else?
The stock market. The investors like to know what's going
to happen months from now.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, and when you see the stock market rallying like
it has in the past few weeks, that's a softening
of the tariffs, But that's also investors saying the next
few months. We have no idea, but we want to
make sure we are invested for the next twelve months
as companies get to figure out what tariffs are going
to actually be, what the economy is going to feel like.
We just got a jobs report out for the month
of April about forty five minutes ago, and it's pretty resilient.
(00:55):
It shows you that companies are still hiring one hundred
and seventy seven thousand jobs added month. The average has
been about one hundred and fifty five thousand, strong hiring
and healthcare, strong hiring in some in manufacturing, and strong
hiring in warehousing. So the economy has been pretty resilient
despite all the concerns about teriffs. But a lot of
that is rear view mirror looking. When we look ahead,
we know tariffs are going to disrupt the supply chain.
(01:18):
They're probably going to cause inflation. But the stock market
has been resilient since the President backed off some of
those hardcore tariffs a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Does the strong job numbers offset I'm looking at the
stock market right now and the Dow futures are up
four hundred and sixty five points, So I guess that
answers my question if the strong unemployment these strong employment numbers,
I should say, if that offsets the softening GDP.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, somewhat, but both again our rear view mirror indicators.
We're looking before the effects of a lot of these
tariffs went into place. We're looking at the month of April.
When we look at GDP, we're looking at the first quarter,
and there was a big drop off in spending. There
was a big drop off in investment. We know there
was a big drop off in government spending because of
dose and a lot of those cuts there. So we're
looking backwards when we look forward. We know that tariffs
(02:05):
are going to cause some inflation of some sort. When
you look at where that's going to be, it's probably
going to be obviously in the auto sector and produce
aisles one through twelve with the supermarket, but also for
things that big companies like Apple and Amazon depend on.
Those companies have said no impact yet, but we're racing
for impact. And companies like Delta Airlines and American Airlines
and others are just not giving forecasts because they can't
(02:26):
see the future. To your earlier point, When you can't
see the future, it's like kryptonite for investors and it's
kryptonite for consumers because they're not sure if they should
make that spend now or wait and see what happens
down the road.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Speaking of seeing the future, and I don't want to
get too deep into the woods with all of this,
but President Trump, when he was talking about the GDP,
kept saying, yeah, but you look at the core GDP
and it's up. You look at the core GDP and
it's positive. I guess my question is, what is the
core GDP.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
When you strip out things that we actually have to
pay for on a monthly basis, like food and energy,
it does look positive. So you know, he's right that said,
we can't get around the fact that we need to
fill our tanks with gas, we need to cool and
heat our homes, we need to eat, and we've had
food inflation, you know, for the past several years, so
we need to strip it out. Yeah, it does look positive,
(03:16):
but you've got to look at the whole picture right now,
and the whole picture shows that there's still hiring going
on in the economy, although those weekly jobless claims are
piling up. Private actor hiring has slowed a little bit,
but the strength in the economy is where it has been.
That's in healthcare, that's in transportation, and that's in warehousing.
And that tells you that economies and companies within this
economy are bracing for the impact of these tariffs, even
(03:38):
though they don't know what to brace for, because the
messaging from the White House has been very inconsistent.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So it looks like, I know, you can't read too
much in what the stock market's going to do from
the futures, because anything can happen during the day. But
what it looks like right now is that Todao is
going to go up a lot today if it stays
with what it's doing right now. What is this in
reaction to?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think this is in reaction to positive corporate earnings
over the past few days. We heard from Amazon and
Apple yesterday too, of the biggest companies in the stock market,
Tim Cook at Apple saying, we really haven't felt the
impact of terriffs. People weren't aggressively buying iPhones because they
thought they were going to get more expensive in a
few weeks. But it was pretty consistent when you look
at Amazon. You know, they mentioned tariffs a few times,
(04:23):
and there was that back and forth with the White
House about whether or not that it would itemize how
much each product was hit by tariffs. That's not going
to happen anymore, but these companies are still selling. These
are the biggest companies in the stock market, and the
chip makers like the NVIDIAs of the world and the
other ones that are the biggest companies in the stock market,
they're saying they're still demand out there. So I think
that's a reaction to that. But also this economic did
(04:44):
even though it's rear view mirror and rear view mirror
indicator is looking stronger than we thought it might. At
this point, we have to watch and see what happens
a month from now, and then the Fed meets next
week on interest rates. Doesn't look like they will lower
interest rates. You know, the President is demanding it, but
investors are looking at into the future, it doesn't look
as bad as they thought.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is it too much of a stretch to say that
the recent rebound and the rebound that still seems to
be going on today in the stock market is a
reaction to the Trump administration saying they're close to several
deals on tariffs.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yes, And I think investors' institutional investors and retail investors
like us want that. They want resolution, They want to
know there's deals in place. They want numbers out there
to say, oh, that's how much this is going to cost,
so they can adjust their pricing. They can adjust their
hiring plans if they had them, they can adjust the
consumers can adjust their spending plans. Just some clarity versus
(05:36):
we're going to do massive reciprocal tears one hundred and
forty five percent on China and then bringing that back
day by day. That's very confusing for businesses and consumers
and investors. But so far, over the past few weeks,
we have had a V shaped rally recovery off of
that big steep nineteen percent drop in the stock market.
We're in better shape, but we're still down around six
percent year today.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So there's a belief on Wall Street. Just to some
up what you were saying a moment ago, there's a
belief on Wall Street that with this ninety day pause
there may be several tariff deals and that things are
going to get better when it comes to the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I believe so. And if you look at a country
like India, it's thinking about making the US its Most
Favored Nations status and trade deals. That's very good news,
especially when companies like Apple are moving a lot of
their supply chain and a lot of their manufacturing over there.
So I think investors are hoping for more deals. Investors
are hoping for at least some concrete numbers to pin
their plans against, and maybe we'll get that in the
(06:34):
next few weeks from this administration, we'll see early days,
but the early days have been rough in the first
hundred days of the administration. Maybe we're getting to some
sense of a little bit more normalcy hopefully.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Anyway, just real quick, so if a trade deals announced
with India, you expect the stock market to take off.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It already kind of has a little bit, just because
they've hinted that there is a trade deal and that
works with India, also with South Korea and Japan. Now
the big trade deals that we need to have happen
are with to Mexico and China. Those are our biggest
trading partners. But any deals around that with the top
ten sort of trading partners where we have the trade
in bounds, that go a long way for investors. But
don't forget we sold off aggressively just because there was
(07:11):
so much confusion. Stocks eventually reverted to the mean. Hopefully
we're getting back to that now. We haven't had these
big thousand point swings during the course of a day
like we did three four weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Caleb Silver, ABC News contributor, Editor in chief of Investipedia,
New York, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Thank you
Now let's talk about the tariffs and the uncertainty that
that brings. And whenever there's uncertainty that is going to
affect the stock market, we've seen the up and down
and up and down over the last couple of weeks.
Let's talk about it with Caleb Silver, who is ABC
News contributor and editor in chief of Investipedia New York.
(00:21):
Thanks so much, Caleb, good morning, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It is the uncertainty, isn't it? More than anything else?
The stock market. The investors like to know what's going
to happen months from now.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, and when you see the stock market rallying like
it has in the past few weeks, that's a softening
of the tariffs, But that's also investors saying the next
few months. We have no idea, but we want to
make sure we are invested for the next twelve months
as companies get to figure out what tariffs are going
to actually be, what the economy is going to feel like.
We just got a jobs report out for the month
of April about forty five minutes ago, and it's pretty resilient.
(00:55):
It shows you that companies are still hiring one hundred
and seventy seven thousand jobs added month. The average has
been about one hundred and fifty five thousand, strong hiring
and healthcare, strong hiring in some in manufacturing, and strong
hiring in warehousing. So the economy has been pretty resilient
despite all the concerns about teriffs. But a lot of
that is rear view mirror looking. When we look ahead,
we know tariffs are going to disrupt the supply chain.
(01:18):
They're probably going to cause inflation. But the stock market
has been resilient since the President backed off some of
those hardcore tariffs a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Does the strong job numbers offset I'm looking at the
stock market right now and the Dow futures are up
four hundred and sixty five points, So I guess that
answers my question if the strong unemployment these strong employment numbers,
I should say, if that offsets the softening GDP.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, somewhat, but both again our rear view mirror indicators.
We're looking before the effects of a lot of these
tariffs went into place. We're looking at the month of April.
When we look at GDP, we're looking at the first quarter,
and there was a big drop off in spending. There
was a big drop off in investment. We know there
was a big drop off in government spending because of
dose and a lot of those cuts there. So we're
looking backwards when we look forward. We know that tariffs
(02:05):
are going to cause some inflation of some sort. When
you look at where that's going to be, it's probably
going to be obviously in the auto sector and produce
aisles one through twelve with the supermarket, but also for
things that big companies like Apple and Amazon depend on.
Those companies have said no impact yet, but we're racing
for impact. And companies like Delta Airlines and American Airlines
and others are just not giving forecasts because they can't
(02:26):
see the future. To your earlier point, When you can't
see the future, it's like kryptonite for investors and it's
kryptonite for consumers because they're not sure if they should
make that spend now or wait and see what happens
down the road.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Speaking of seeing the future, and I don't want to
get too deep into the woods with all of this,
but President Trump, when he was talking about the GDP,
kept saying, yeah, but you look at the core GDP
and it's up. You look at the core GDP and
it's positive. I guess my question is, what is the
core GDP.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
When you strip out things that we actually have to
pay for on a monthly basis, like food and energy,
it does look positive. So you know, he's right that said,
we can't get around the fact that we need to
fill our tanks with gas, we need to cool and
heat our homes, we need to eat, and we've had
food inflation, you know, for the past several years, so
we need to strip it out. Yeah, it does look positive,
(03:16):
but you've got to look at the whole picture right now,
and the whole picture shows that there's still hiring going
on in the economy, although those weekly jobless claims are
piling up. Private actor hiring has slowed a little bit,
but the strength in the economy is where it has been.
That's in healthcare, that's in transportation, and that's in warehousing.
And that tells you that economies and companies within this
economy are bracing for the impact of these tariffs, even
(03:38):
though they don't know what to brace for, because the
messaging from the White House has been very inconsistent.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So it looks like, I know, you can't read too
much in what the stock market's going to do from
the futures, because anything can happen during the day. But
what it looks like right now is that Todao is
going to go up a lot today if it stays
with what it's doing right now. What is this in
reaction to?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think this is in reaction to positive corporate earnings
over the past few days. We heard from Amazon and
Apple yesterday too, of the biggest companies in the stock market,
Tim Cook at Apple saying, we really haven't felt the
impact of terriffs. People weren't aggressively buying iPhones because they
thought they were going to get more expensive in a
few weeks. But it was pretty consistent when you look
at Amazon. You know, they mentioned tariffs a few times,
(04:23):
and there was that back and forth with the White
House about whether or not that it would itemize how
much each product was hit by tariffs. That's not going
to happen anymore, but these companies are still selling. These
are the biggest companies in the stock market, and the
chip makers like the NVIDIAs of the world and the
other ones that are the biggest companies in the stock market,
they're saying they're still demand out there. So I think
that's a reaction to that. But also this economic did
(04:44):
even though it's rear view mirror and rear view mirror
indicator is looking stronger than we thought it might. At
this point, we have to watch and see what happens
a month from now, and then the Fed meets next
week on interest rates. Doesn't look like they will lower
interest rates. You know, the President is demanding it, but
investors are looking at into the future, it doesn't look
as bad as they thought.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is it too much of a stretch to say that
the recent rebound and the rebound that still seems to
be going on today in the stock market is a
reaction to the Trump administration saying they're close to several
deals on tariffs.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yes, And I think investors' institutional investors and retail investors
like us want that. They want resolution, They want to
know there's deals in place. They want numbers out there
to say, oh, that's how much this is going to cost,
so they can adjust their pricing. They can adjust their
hiring plans if they had them, they can adjust the
consumers can adjust their spending plans. Just some clarity versus
(05:36):
we're going to do massive reciprocal tears one hundred and
forty five percent on China and then bringing that back
day by day. That's very confusing for businesses and consumers
and investors. But so far, over the past few weeks,
we have had a V shaped rally recovery off of
that big steep nineteen percent drop in the stock market.
We're in better shape, but we're still down around six
percent year today.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So there's a belief on Wall Street. Just to some
up what you were saying a moment ago, there's a
belief on Wall Street that with this ninety day pause
there may be several tariff deals and that things are
going to get better when it comes to the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I believe so. And if you look at a country
like India, it's thinking about making the US its Most
Favored Nations status and trade deals. That's very good news,
especially when companies like Apple are moving a lot of
their supply chain and a lot of their manufacturing over there.
So I think investors are hoping for more deals. Investors
are hoping for at least some concrete numbers to pin
their plans against, and maybe we'll get that in the
(06:34):
next few weeks from this administration, we'll see early days,
but the early days have been rough in the first
hundred days of the administration. Maybe we're getting to some
sense of a little bit more normalcy hopefully.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Anyway, just real quick, so if a trade deals announced
with India, you expect the stock market to take off.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It already kind of has a little bit, just because
they've hinted that there is a trade deal and that
works with India, also with South Korea and Japan. Now
the big trade deals that we need to have happen
are with to Mexico and China. Those are our biggest
trading partners. But any deals around that with the top
ten sort of trading partners where we have the trade
in bounds, that go a long way for investors. But
don't forget we sold off aggressively just because there was
(07:11):
so much confusion. Stocks eventually reverted to the mean. Hopefully
we're getting back to that now. We haven't had these
big thousand point swings during the course of a day
like we did three four weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Caleb Silver, ABC News contributor, Editor in chief of Investipedia,
New York, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Thank you
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