When trade uncertainty meets earnings season.
Investors have a lot of different threads to pull on today, some bearish and some bullish.
Starting with the bullish, President Trump said he has inked a trade deal with Japan. The news is providing confidence that bigger deals with the European Union and China could get done soon.
“So when you have the psychological bar that has gotten set low, as was certainly the case in the early part of April, it is easier for the actual data to hurdle that bar,” Charles Schwab chief investment strategist Liz Ann Sonders said on Opening Bid regarding the market’s positive response to the trade news.
Also bullish is AT&T (T) saying on its earnings release that it’ll save up to $8 billion from this year to 2027 as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
On the bearish side, Hilton (HLT) issued an earnings warning relative to consensus in part because of reduced inbound tourism. And Hasbro (HAS) said it has to take a $1 billion impairment charge in the second quarter because of Chinese tariffs.
Here is everything we touched on during Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid on Wednesday. Tune in live daily to Opening Bid at 9:30 a.m. ET.
A trade deal with Japan will see the country get stamped with a 15% tariff rate. Shares of automakers like Toyota (TM) soared in response.
This is on the heels of a trade agreement with the Philippines and terms with Indonesia being reached.
“The better-than-expected outcome with Japan suggests that the administration remains wary of the economic impact if a no-deal scenario leads to retaliatory actions from trading partners,” Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi of UBS Global Wealth Management explained.
We’re seeing a little evolution of the renewed meme stock trade today.
Tuesday’s hot mover in struggling department store Kohl’s (KSS) has been replaced by big moves in Krispy Kreme (DNUT) and GoPro (GPRO) — two struggling brands in their own right. The latest meme activity comes as retail investors look to capitalize on the bullish markets.
“The phenomenon of meme stocks isn’t going away. I feel like the genie’s out of the bottle. And it’s just become a way for a certain subset of everyday investors to trade, and that’s completely fine,” Ritholtz Wealth Management strategist Callie Cox said on Opening Bid.
AT&T called out a huge new profit tailwind from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The company expects to realize $6.5 billion to $8 billion of cash tax savings from 2025 to 2027.