🧠 US markets retrace to pre-election levels, while Europe take a breather

🏛️ Financial News

• US Jobs Report 💼 US jobs data calms market fears, but jitters on policy uncertainty dominate – Rueters: A solid February jobs report assuaged concerns about a rapid growth slowdown. But with policy uncertainty and tariff headlines, job growth shy of estimates, and the unemployment rate edging up to 4.1%, the outlook for risk assets of the equities market remains murky.

• US Federal Reserve 🏛️ Fed expected to cut rates in June as jobs data raises potential red flags – Reuters: The Fed will head into its March 18-19 policy meeting with the labor market strong overall, but showing potential early signs of weakening, a development that could put the US central bank in a tough spot if inflation remains high and the Trump's tariffs add to price pressures.

• Administration 🏛️ DOGE layoffs may ‘overwhelm’ unemployment system for federal workers, report finds – CNBC: According to The Century Foundation, the scale of DOGE cuts will likely flood the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees, with federal workers claims and the program may struggle to make timely payments..

🌎 Global Markets

• European Central Bank 🏛️ ECB cuts rates for sixth time since June despite sticky inflation – Euronews: The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 2.5% on Thursday as inflation nears 2% and growth remains weak. The ECB reduced its interest rates on Thursday afternoon during its March meeting, as analysts had anticipated.

• UK Markets 💂 FTSE 100 marks worst week of year amid tariff whiplash – Rueters: China’s British stocks ended mostly lower on Friday, as gains in heavyweight oil and gas company shares were offset by worries about the impact of U.S. trade policies on global economic growth.

• German Markets 🍺 DAX hits new high as EU summit concludes defense spending increase – EuroNews: The DAX hit a new high and Germany’s government bond yields soared, as EU member states agreed on a statement to boost the bloc’s defense spending, backing Germany’s push to relax its fiscal rules.

• China Exports 🏛️ China’s exports miss forecasts as US tariffs hit, imports record sharpest decline since July 2023 – CNBC: China’s January to February exports in rose 2.3% in US dollar terms from a year earlier, significantly undershooting expectations of a 5% increase in a Reuters poll. According to LSEG data, this marked the slowest growth since April 2024 when exports increased by just 1.5% on year.

• China GDP 🏛️ China targets ‘around 5%’ growth in 2025 and lays out stimulus measures as trade worries mount – CNBC: China laid out stimulus measures to boost its economy amid escalating trade tensions with the US. Beijing raised its budget deficit target to “around 4%” of GDP from 3% last year. The 4% deficit would mark the highest on record going back to 2010. The prior high was 3.6% in 2020.

 📈 Stocks & ETFs

• ·$TGT 🛒 Target to expand online marketplace, boost product assortment as it aims for $15B in sales growth by 2030 – CNBC: The retailer plans to boost its online marketplace and product assortment to drive $15B in sales growth by investing billions in stores, technology and its supply chain. 

• $WBA 💊 Walgreens to go private in roughly $10B deal with Sycamore Partners – CNBC: The private equity firm will take it off the public market, ending Walgreens’ tumultuous run as a public company, which began in 1927. Walgreens has been squeezed by the transition out of the Covid pandemic, pharmacy reimbursement headwinds, softer consumer spending and a troubled push into healthcare.

• $DASH 🍔 DoorDash’s stock pops as it gets the S&P 500 nod over these more volatile names – MarketWatch: DoorDash is one of four companies that will soon join the S&P 500. AppLovin and Coinbase didn’t make the cut.

🚀 Magnificent 7

• $AAPL 🍎 Apple delays upgraded Siri: it’s taking ‘longer than we thought’ – CNBC: Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy gave a statement that Siri’s more personalized AI-supercharged capabilities were expected to be released this spring. With the arrival of generative AI technology, Apple risks falling behind rivals like OpenAI, Amazon, Google and others.

• $TSLA 🔌 Tesla shares have declined every week since Elon Musk went to Washington – CNBC: Tesla shares plunged 28% in February, their worst month since a 37% drop in December 2022. February also marked CEO Elon Musk’s first full month in the White House as part of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Softening sales and tariffs are factors, along with rising anti-Tesla and anti-Musk sentiment.

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🚀 Artificial Intelligence

• $AVGO 🌐 Broadcom shares rise as AI growth powers strong guidance – CNBC: Broadcom shares jumped after posting strong Q1 earnings and guidance that showed ongoing artificial intelligence demand. Shares have benefitted from the AI boom that’s swept Wall Street since the launch of ChatGPT, with shares more than doubling in 2024.

• $TSMC 🔲 Trump announces $100B investment in US from TSMC, calls it ‘most powerful company’ in world – CNBC: The money will go toward building new chip manufacturing plants and brings the company’s total investment in the U.S. to $165B.

• $HPE 🗄️ HPE stock crashes as CEO weighs in on job cuts, earnings miss, and DOGE – Yahoo! Finance: The server maker topped revenue expectations for the January quarter even as it faced a heavy discounting in the market. But guidance for the new quarter and the full fiscal year was weak.

• $CRWD 🛡️ CrowdStrike falls 9% on disappointing earnings forecast – CNBC: CrowdStrike slumped after issuing disappointing earnings guidance, as it expects earnings per share of between $3.33 and $3.45, falling short of the $4.42 expected by LSEG. The company reported $4.24B in annual recurring revenues.

• $PLTR 📊 Palantir delivers first two AI-enabled TITAN systems to the US Army – CNBC: The company won the $178M contract last March, beating out competitor RTX Corp. The deal underscores the shifting landscape of software use on the battlefield, and is the the first-time a software company has worked as a primary contractor for a significant hardware program.

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💱 Crypto Currencies

• US Administration 🏛️ Trump Orders ‘Fort Knox’ Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Assets Stockpile – Coindesk: President Trump directed his administration to establish a bitcoin reserve to hold seized assets, and it's setting up a separate crypto stockpile.

• Market Analysis 🔎 Bitcoin Reserve Fails to Rouse BTC Bulls as Jobs Data Looms – Coindesk: President Trump directed his Was it worth the wait? President Donald Trump finally delivered on his electoral promise on Thursday, signing an executive order to establish the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.

• Public Funds 🏙️ Texas Surges in U.S. States' Race to Put Public Funds Into Crypto – CNBC: Texas' bitcoin strategic reserve bill clears its senate, while New Hampshire marks a committee win and Utah teeters on a deadline this week.

🏖️ Retirement

• Time-Horizon 🏛️ 'Long-term' investment plans are key amid market volatility – Yahoo! Finance: Creating an investment strategy begins with understanding your risk tolerance. "At the end of the day, if you're not willing to take on the risk or you don't like the risk, then we need to dial it back".

• Social Security 🏛️ Social Security to increase overpayment withholdings to 100% from 10% – MarketWatch: SSA said it would increase the amount it would claw back from Social Security recipients who received overpayments of their benefits, bringing the withholding back to 100% from 10%. The clawback reversal would apply to new overpayments and will save $7B over 10 years.

• Great Wealth Transfer 🏛️ Citizens Wealth survey finds 84% of women not confident managing an inheritance or windfall – Citizen Bank Blog: A poll of more than 1,500 Americans highlights how demographic gaps in investing and estate planning create an opportunity for advisors.

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It was a tough week across the markets but hopefully we’ve plateaued. This should serve as an reminder how important it is to, not only diversify your portfolio, but also understand risk-tolerance and time-horizon.

We’ll be back next Saturday morning to recap the week’s financial news.

Thanks to Empower for sponsoring.

✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
[email protected]

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