Week Ending 04_18_2025 Stock Market Recap

Markets were trying to hang on this week but we think the short term is still constructive. How so? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!

Episode Transcript

(00:34):
Hello and welcome
to this week's edition of The Big Money Report. I'm your
host, David Boothe, President and Chief Investment Officer at BIG
Investment Services. That's BIG, Boothe Investment
Group. We're a full-service financial advisory based out of Dover, Delaware,
serving clients all across America. And you can read all

(00:56):
about us at abigplan.com. That's www.abigplan.com. I
like to put the show together once a week just to give you a recap of the week behind
and a peek at the week and weeks to come, trying to keep you
up to speed with you and your money. And we're glad you're with us today. It
is Friday, April 18th, 2025. Some

(01:16):
shout out to Dan, Greg, Jeff, Ken, David, and
Beth. Beth listens every week. Beth is awesome. Been
with her for a long time. Hey, look, it was a shortened week this week due to Easter weekend
and Good Friday. Speaking of which, not only do we care about your financial future
here at BIG, we care about your eternity, too. And if
you know me, then you know I research things like crazy. And this is
an issue that I have heavily researched as well. So if

(01:39):
you ever have tough questions, want to talk to somebody about it, A converted atheist
is probably a good place to start, so reach out to me. And if you're already on board, have
a wonderful and awesome Easter, the greatest
holiday of the year. So let's go and turn our attention to
the markets. What is going on this week? Well, things
continue to drift a little lower this week, down, down 2.6%. I've

(02:02):
given up most of that there on Thursday, the last day of trading here
for the week, mainly because of UnitedHealth having a horrific quarter. S&P
500 down 1.5%, NASDAQ down 2.6%, Russell
small cap index up 1% on the week. So things
pushing lower a little bit, but here's what's interesting. When you look at the
equal weighted S&P 500, it's all shout out to Tim

(02:25):
who brought this up and asked about this at the economic breakfast
back in January. The S&P 500 is really weighted
heavily with the mag seven, these big large cap tech
stocks not doing so hot. But if you look at the equal weighted S&P.
The same 500 stocks with equal weighting, so you get more exposure to
things like energy and financials and other areas

(02:47):
of the market, it was up half a percent, just under half a percent on
the week. I think that's pretty telling. I think we're starting to see a
little bit more interest in other areas of the market, and
rightly so. You know, when you take a look at how things went for the
week and you look at the different sectors, you had energy up
3.2% this week. Real estate up 3.8%, consumer staples up 1.9%, utilities

(03:09):
up 1.8%. So defensive, no doubt, but still having that
extra exposure to other areas helps out a lot. Because you look at the other hand, you got
tech down 3.6% on the week, consumer discretionary down
3.2%. And communication services, that would include Google, Facebook, things
like that down 2.9%. Good to
have that diversity, which I'm happy to report we have quite a bit of

(03:31):
it. That really helps us smooth things out with crazy markets. And
that's where we're at right now. Definitely a crazy market. VIX still elevated on
the week, finishing in the low 30s. So there's still a
lot of fear in the market right now. And of course, I'm seeing all
the crazy stories come out. The big one right now, if
you pay any attention to financial news, you hear about the death cross, the

(03:51):
50-day moving average crossing below the 200-day moving average on
the S&P. All I'll tell you is that that's really not all that it's cracked up
to be. As a matter of fact, in most instances, since the early
2000s, you've had positive returns on the market looking out three to
12 months from the death cross. So I don't hold a lot
of weight into that. I'm looking more at other information, other data, other things that

(04:12):
concern me. So a couple of things going on here. Look, I think we're in the midst of
this rally that we talked about. We talked about a rally. in
the market. I think we're in it. I think that can continue for
a bit. I got a little concerned there on Wednesday. Markazooka, big
hit on Wednesday thanks to J-PAL and company not
offering any love whatsoever to the

(04:33):
markets. None. Zip. Nada. Zero. Jay's
like, hey, good luck to you, everybody. You're on your own.
I understand he's worried about inflation, although I do think that tariff inflation will
be more of a one and done type of event. And right
now the employment numbers still hanging in there. Look, we're seeing a
weakness in different areas of the economy. One of the things that really

(04:55):
caught my eye this past week, credit utilization, consumer
credit. has completely tanked, completely tanked.
We've never seen a drop to the level that it dropped and
not had a recession. It's never happened, like never.
So that is another piece of evidence along with other things that would

(05:16):
make me believe that a recession is imminent. Now, the
credit markets, as far as the credit spreads between high
yield and high quality credit, still not screaming recession's imminent.
We talked about the bond market being the valedictorian turned pro-fighter.
As a matter of fact, someone said, hey, David, WWF probably
wasn't the best analogy because that's all fake. more like the

(05:37):
new mixed martial arts, right, where you actually do get punched in the face. And that's
exactly what the bond market did to this policy there a
couple of weeks ago and created this 90-day reprieve in
tariffs. And the market has had a rally in the face of that, but still
been choppy. And Wednesday, Powell was speaking, and like I
said, he offered zero notion of support to

(05:57):
markets at this point in time, and the market responded in
kind. It was a pretty ugly day on Wednesday. I was happy to see that there
was not a lot of follow through on Thursday. The
market kind of was up for a bit. It did finish mixed for the day,
but it just wasn't that free fall that we saw a couple weeks
ago, day after day, just the market losing dramatically. And

(06:17):
the technicals right now do point to this market probably
going higher in the short term. My targets are 5,500 on
the S&P, and if we can get above that, then we're looking
around 5,780 or so on the S&P 500 for those
that are tracking and watching this stuff. Those are the two levels we're
looking at on the upside, 5,500, 5,780. We want to

(06:39):
see the market get up to those levels. And then I think it's probably going to fail there.
So what I believe is probably happening more than likely anyway, in
the coming weeks, we're going to get some good news on tariff
negotiations. The Trump administration's signaling that they're
in meetings right now. I mean, just look at India. We bought an India investment
just last week, just last Friday. for a number

(07:00):
of reasons. One, the Indian economy is really coming on
strong. The market has been in a serious downward
slope since September of last year, and
it's recently broke that downward trend line. I think things look pretty
exhausted. And on top of that, India is in a better place, I
think, than, say, China and other countries to negotiate with the U.S. and

(07:21):
probably be a benefactor, actually, to some of the companies trying to find
shelter in the storm. So we put a significant amount of money into India just
a week ago. It was up 5% this week, 4.6%. Had
a great week. So did Europe. It was up 3%. Southeast Asia, up
4.8%. Places like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines. Foreign investments
are helping out a lot in our models throughout BIG. And

(07:44):
look, we have not been this overweight in foreign. Gosh,
I can't even remember the last time I had this much in foreign holdings. We
loaded up on January 3rd of this year, and we've added
more here with India. It's working out beautifully. And the other diversity as
well, having money and energy and gold, which continues
to be incredibly constructive, up another 4% this week. All

(08:05):
of these things help and help a lot. Not to get off track, I think
that in the coming weeks, you're going to probably see some
good news, some good headlines surrounding trade.
Markets will probably respond in kind. However, in
the background, behind the scenes, things are deteriorating. I
believe the damage has likely already been done. I

(08:27):
think corporate America and consumers are already reining
in their spending. I think they're already slowing down and pausing
to kind of see how things shake out. And all that is probably going to have a ripple effect
and could lead to a mild recession. So I think that the probability of
that is pretty high and therefore the market probably
is not finished yet. Everyone's talking about the death cross, I mentioned that

(08:48):
earlier, and all these other crazy things. Look, the bottom line, let's talk
about the downside. I mentioned it last week, I believe, 4,600 on the
S&P, 4,600. That's 13% further down
from here. That won't be pretty. That would be pretty ugly. Okay,
that would not feel good. Don't get me wrong. Of course, we've been holding up much better.
We're in really great shape here today. But nonetheless, the market could

(09:09):
certainly experience some more pain. But I don't think that it's
going to be a whole lot worse than that because I don't see us slipping into a secular
bear market. David asked about that when I saw him this week. What does
that mean? Secular means a long-term trend, long-term.
Cyclical short, secular is long. We are currently in
a secular bull market, a market going higher. And

(09:29):
you'll have small cyclical bear markets within
those secular trends. I don't think that secular trend is about to change because
of artificial intelligence, quite frankly. I think there's just too much growth to
be had with AI to really see a change from
secular bull to secular bear. So I'm not expecting that at
this point. So 4,600 is where I'm looking on the S&P. And

(09:51):
I think that if recession does develop, we could see it definitely work
its way down to that. Earnings have been coming in. Earnings have
been okay, but the big thing that I'm keying on is
earnings expectations, and they're dropping like a rock. They are
dropping like a rock. Now, we did see a couple of situations this week
where we had some bad news and stocks went up.

(10:11):
Remember I mentioned last week, that's a good sign, that's something we'll be looking for. It's
a little early yet. We don't want to see if that continues or not, but right
now we are just sitting in a really nice place,
a really, really good place. We've got lower exposure to
the U S market, but we've got enough on these updates. We're
still making plenty of return. The foreign investments are

(10:32):
really adding a lot of performance to the portfolios right
now. And we've got a nice position in cash and a nice position
in bonds. So we're really set very nicely for
whatever's going to come our way. And honestly, I
do hope the market goes lower. I would love to see it take a bigger hit because
I would like to put this cash to work at lower levels. So that's

(10:53):
where we are with things at the moment. There's a lot to come with earning
season really starts to kick into high gear next week, right? We've got the
banks this past week, but next week we get into some more meat
and potatoes of the economy. We'll start hearing a lot more and get a
better feel for how things are going and the market's
going to react accordingly. But I do think that the market's kind of tilted

(11:13):
towards wanting to go higher. And I would expect it to at
least make a push up to 5,500. If not there, then
maybe a little higher up to 5,780. And then I would be a little bit
more concerned that we're going to probably roll over and head back down again, especially
if the economic data continues to deteriorate. And
so far that has been the case. So just hang in there, right?

(11:34):
We're on top of this. We're working it good. And we've got a great plan. I'm
not gonna keep you any longer. It's been a long few weeks here, 20 minute podcast. I
apologize. I'm going to wrap up, but between now and next few minutes, you're thinking about your future,
your long-term goals, all the things you want to do with you
and your money. Maybe it's retire a little early. Buy that second
house, Airbnb it for a little bit. Maybe take that big trip

(11:55):
and fly first class. Hey, you know what your goals are. Don't just think
about it. Think big. Think BIG. And
Thank you for listening to this week's edition of the Big Money Report with
your host, David Boothe, President and Financial Advisor at
BIG Investment Services. For more information on BIG and
how you can access their planning and investment management services, visit

(12:18):
them at abigplan.com. That's abigplan.com. Or
call them toll free at 866-946-PLAN. That's 866-946-7526. The
foregoing content reflects the opinions of David Boothe and Boothe Investment Group,
Inc., and is subject to change at any time without notice. There's no

(12:38):
guarantee that the statements, opinions, or forecasts provided herein will
prove to be correct. Content provided herein is for informational purposes only
and should not be used or construed as investment advice or a recommendation regarding
the purchase or sale of any security. All investing involves risk, including the
potential for loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment plan or