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Good morning investors!

If this is your first time reading, welcome to The Investor’s Edge — a thriving community of over 22,000 subscribers striving to be better investors with an edge in the market.

Every weekend we publish “The Weekly Wrap-Up” — your ticket to being well informed and staying ahead in the investment game!

This report is designed to help investors of all skill levels break down important stories/topics within the stock market. And best of all, we cut through all of the BS and give you exactly what you need to know in easy to digest, bite sized pieces of content.

Grab your coffee and let’s dive in.

Market Talk

All three major indexes finished the week much higher after Trump announced a 90 day pause on tariffs. Meanwhile, treasury yields saw a huge spike on the news.

3 Stories Moving the Market

These are some of the biggest stories from the second half of the week that had an influence on market action.

China strikes back with 125% tariffs on U.S. goods as trade war intensifies

China escalated its trade retaliation against the U.S. on Friday, raising tariffs on American goods from 84% to 125%, following President Trump’s latest tariff hike, which brought total U.S. levies on Chinese imports to 145%.

President Xi reiterated that "no one wins in a tariff war," but pledged to continue fighting back if U.S. pressure persists. China’s Finance Ministry dismissed further U.S. tariff increases as economically meaningless, warning that U.S. goods are now effectively priced out of the Chinese market.

Despite the aggressive move, Beijing refrained from additional export controls or expanding its "unreliable entities" list, signaling a measured but firm stance. China’s Commerce Ministry maintained it is still open to negotiations, though both sides appear far from a resolution.

The White House did not officially respond but U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent criticized China as the “worst offender” in global trade.

Consumer sentiment tumbles in April as inflation fears spike, despite cooler than expected inflation reports recently

Consumer sentiment collapsed in April, falling to 50.8, the lowest reading since mid-2022 and the second-worst in the survey’s history, as inflation expectations jumped to levels not seen since the early 1980s.

Current conditions and future expectations both declined over 10% month-over-month, with recession fears mounting across all demographics.

One-year inflation expectations surged to 6.7%, the highest since 1981, and five-year expectations rose to 4.4%, raising alarms that consumer psychology could override actual data.

The sharp rise in expectations came despite cooler-than-expected CPI and PPI reports earlier this week, which showed inflation moderating in March.

While markets had hoped easing inflation data would support a soft landing, the sharp drop in sentiment—driven by tariff fears, labor market concerns, and rising unemployment expectations—suggests the Fed will remain wary of inflation and potential of an economic slowdown becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Banks Kick Off Earnings Season Amid Economic Uncertainty

Several major U.S. banks and the world’s largest asset manager posted first-quarter earnings today, with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley all beating Wall Street expectations. BlackRock reported a mixed quarter but posted record assets under management.

JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▲ 4.0% ) reported strong results, driven by higher net interest income and solid trading activity.

• EPS: $5.07 vs. $4.63 est.

• Revenue: $45.3B vs. $43.9B est.

Wells Fargo $WFC ( ▼ 0.95% ) beat on earnings but missed on revenue, with overall results lifted by cost control despite a revenue dip.

• EPS: $1.39 vs. $1.23 est.

• Revenue: $20.15B vs. $20.72B est.

Morgan Stanley $MS ( ▲ 1.45% ) delivered a strong quarter led by a resurgence in investment banking and wealth management inflows.

• EPS: $2.60 vs. $2.21 est.

• Revenue: $17.7B vs. $16.54B est.

BlackRock $BLK ( ▲ 2.33% ) missed slightly on headline GAAP metrics but posted solid adjusted earnings and hit a new AUM record of $11.58T.

• EPS: $11.30 vs. $10.08 est.

• Revenue: $5.28B vs. $5.29B est.

*Note - our full breakdowns of these reports was sent out in Friday’s Earnings Recap.

In Other News

In this section, we'll be curating a selection of news headlines we think you'll find interesting. If a topic catches your eye, click the provided links to read more about it.

• What's in Trump's 90-day pause on tariffs?

• Inflation rate eases to 2.4% in March, lower than expected; core at 4-year low

• Apple airlifted 600 tons of iPhones from India 'to beat' Trump tariffs

• Jamie Dimon says he expects S&P 500 earnings estimates to fall as companies pull guidance

• Chinese sellers on Amazon to hike prices or exit US as tariffs soar

• PPI for March Comes in Negative

• 10-year Treasury yield tops 4.5% after surge this week that’s worrying Wall Street and the White House

• Mortgage rates surge over 7% as tariffs hit bond market

• GM cutting jobs, idling Canadian electric van plant due to ‘market demand’

• TikTok fuels ByteDance revenue as US ban looms

Edge+ Posts of the Week

We continue to push out more and more content every week to give investors that edge. Here are the posts Investor’s Edge+ subscribers received this week.

The Edge Report

Mondays are for the investors. Every Monday morning we share exactly what we’re watching in the week ahead, how we’re positioning, and even share a sneak peek into our systems and models. This week we discussed the volatility we are seeing in markets, the impacts of tariffs, and the upcoming inflation reports. See the latest full report here:

Portfolio Update - April

Every month we share a full access look into our portfolios, including holdings, performance, activity and our watchlists for the upcoming month. You can see both of our portfolios here and see what moves we made in March:

The Options Edge Report

This week we dropped the latest Edge Options Report for our members—packed with actionable insights and options strategies. We broke down a play on SPY following its recent sell-off. See the latest report here:

Edge Quick Picks

Every month we break down 5 stocks that we believe are attractive from a valuation perspective right now. See the 5 stocks we are buying in April:

Earnings Recap

Every week during earnings season is extremely busy for us here at the Edge as we dive into over 100 reports and provide our members with top tier breakdowns and insights. This week we saw earnings from several banks, and Delta Airlines. See this week’s recap:

The Week Ahead

Earnings season carries on with several major companies reporting, while the housing market is in focus on the economy side.

Earnings Reports

Banks officially kicked off earnings season and the reports come rolling in next week, with 9 names we cover here at Edge on the calendar. Here is the list of names we will be covering:

• Monday 4/14: Goldman Sachs

• Tuesday 4/15: Johnson & Johnson and Bank of America

• Wednesday 4/16: Abbott Labs and Prologis

• Thursday 4/17: Taiwan Semi, UnitedHealth, Netflix, and Charles Schwab

• Friday 4/18: --

Here is the full calendar of scheduled earnings releases:

Economic Reports

Next week is relatively quiet on the economic report front, but Jerome Powell’s speech on Wednesday is sure to have an impact on the market.

We also get initial jobless claims, retail sales, and several housing reports for a full week of data.

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Thank you for reading this edition of the Weekly Wrap-Up. Have a great weekend!

Until next time investors!

Mark & Chris

The Investor’s Edge

Disclosure

This is not investing advice. It is very important that you do your own research and make investments based on your own personal circumstances, preferences, goals and risk tolerance.