10 Things Traders Need to Know Right Now

April 3, 2025
/ By Michael Comeau

We're closing out another fun-filled week in the markets. And by “fun,” we mean miserable. Unless you were short.

President Trump tossing a major “chaos bomb” into the market with his aggressive Tariff announcement on Thursday
China firing back with a 34% tariff on US-made goods
Vietnam and Thailand signaling they will play ball with Trump on Tariffs
QQQ entering bear-market territory with a 20% decline off the highs
Newsmax (NMAX) going public on Monday and becoming a meme stock on Tuesday
Gold hitting record highs

And MORE!

So let's dig into 10 Things Traders Need to Know Right Freakin' Now!

1. QQQ Enters Bear Market Territory

Mag7 stocks have been a total mess in 2025, officially becoming the “Lag7.”

And QQQ officially entered bear market territory by falling 20% off the highs on midday Friday.

It definitely ain't 2023 or 2024 anymore!

As of Friday at 1:04 pm ET, just one stock in QQQ had a Relative Strength Index (RSI) over 60 – Exelon Corporation (EXC).

The small caps are even messier, with IWM over 26% from its highs.

Need insights on navigating times like this?

Check out The 7 Unbreakable Rules of Bear Market Trading by David Prince of Inner Circle.

2. CPI Could Create Pandemonium, Consumer Sentiment Could Signal Misery

Inflation has moderated in recent months, as you can see on the chart of the YoY Core CPI:

Traders want more of this to give the Fed ample room to cut rates.

Markets are pricing in:

4 rate cuts this year
35% probability of a 25 bps cut at the May 7 Fed meeting
100% probability of easing at the June meeting

Traders are worried about stagflation – stagnating economic growth and high inflation.

Because tariffs could hurt growth and increase inflation at the same time.

On Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he expects tariffs to increase inflation and hurt growth.

Hard economic data has been decent as of late.

The March NFP and ADP employment numbers were solid, as was Q4 GDP.

A hot CPI number on Thursday would be a disaster.

On Friday, we get the April Michigan Consumer Sentiment number.

Readings have been dropping like a rock all year.

A continued drop may be a good thing for traders — since major collapses in Consumer Sentiment tend to correspond with stock market bottoms.

3. Earnings Season Kicks Off with the Banks

We get the first taste of Q1 earnings season with JP Morgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), BlackRock (BLK), and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) reporting Friday.

Expectations are low.

FactSet tells us that 107 S&P 500 companies issued Q1 guidance, with 68 leaning negative. That's 64%, above the 5-year average of 57%.

And most of the weakness is in tech.

But guidance is likely to get even worse thanks to all the tariff uncertainty.

Because companies want to keep expectations as low as possible to set the stage for positive earnings surprises.

The banks are key because they'll give us insights into housing and the overall consumer picture – a good companion to the Michigan Sentiment report.

4. Gold Had a Monster “Sell the News”

Gold hit record highs on Thursday on President Trump's tariff announcement.

But then it sold off.

Hard.

Traders have been asking whether gold's surprising surge in 2025 was a sign of trouble to come.

In hindsight, that looks right.

If the tariff situation cools off, gold may flat-out collapse.

5. NVIDIA Could be a Value Stock

If you loved NVIDIA (NVDA) at 70 times earnings… do you like it as 21 times earnings?

NVIDIA was the leading megacap tech growth stock of 2023 and 2024.

Could be the greatest value stock of 2025?

Tough to say.

Especially because traders want a big earnings report and strong guidance from this semiconductor leader.

The problem is that NVIDIA won't report earnings again until May.

6. Nike May Be the Tariff Bellwether

Nike (NKE) was devastated on Thursday and Friday because the new Tariffs will hit the company's supply chain, particularly in Vietnam.

On Friday, Nike broke its pandemic low, and then rebounded hard when Vietnam signaled it would strike a tariff deal with the US.

If more dip buyers come in hard, that could mean the market is looking past the near-term pain of the Tariff storm.

Also see: Lululemon (LULU) and Deckers (DECK).

7. Sentiment Is Rock Bottom Negative

61.9% of investors are bearish for the next 6 months, according to AAII Sentiment.

This is the 3rd highest bearish reading in history, behind:

March 5, 2009: 70.3% at height of housing crisis
October 19, 1990: 67.0% bc of Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait, surging oil prices, and a US recession.

These extreme readings happened right at market bottoms.

But in fairness, in those cases, the markets were down much further off highs.

And this 61.9% bearish number was calculated BEFORE the Trump Tariff news hit.

8. NewsMax Could Implode

Newsmax (NMAX) has a high valuation and big losses. Not a great recipe for outperformance in this market.

The stock opened at $14 when it IPO'd on Monday.

And it hit $265 on Tuesday.

On Wednesday at 1:15 pm ET, Adam Mesh announced he was shorting the stock.

The stock was around $121 when this live stream started… and just an hour later it was at $67.

And on Thursday it hit a low of $40.

This is not a great environment for super-risky speculative names. So Newsmax should have a rough time going forward.

9. Bitcoin May Be Decoupling from US Equities

Scott Redler pointed out this week that Bitcoin looks like it may be decoupling from SPY.

We are being very selective with the starting point on this chart. Still – Bitcoin's staying power has been remarkable during a sloppy era for risk assets.