Wednesday Apr. 2, 2025 - The markets awaits the big Rose Garden announcement.
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He's been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He's the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He's president of Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.

And welcome to the Wednesday, it is the midweek, Liberation Day, April the 2nd edition of the Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson.

President of Gundersen Capital Management. I'm here with Jeff Webster, my vice president. And we kind of have a wait-and-see attitude on Wall Street today because at 4 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House, we'll hear...

Just what Liberation Day entails. Right now the Dow is down a little bit, not bad, as we begin a second quarter, second day of the second quarter. The Dow is down 91 points. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ is down just 7. The S&P 500 is down 10 points.

And the small cap index is down four points, the Russell 2000. So that's how the equities are faring so far. As far as the bond market goes, we're seeing a new low for the year on bonds, on interest rates. We're down to 4.11 today. Now it's up to 4.14. We were at 4.11. That's very low right now today.

Trump has been good for the bond market, but not so good for the stock market so far. Crude oil is at $7.99. And gold is hitting a new high. It's up 32 basis points to $3,156. So welcome to...

Today's Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I'm here with Jeff Webster, who will be weighing in on a lot of things here today going on in the markets. There's never a dull moment. I mean, you could say, well, that's one of the things I don't like about the market as an investor, Jeff. But it's one of the things that I do like about the market today.

Because no two days are ever alike in the market. You never know what you're going to wake up to in the morning. Absolutely keeps us on our toes, doesn't it? Oh, man. And it keeps you humble, right? It keeps you humble. Just when you think, oh, well, the market's never going to have a down day and all our stocks are just going to go to the moon, it's not long before the market humbles you once again. Well, it was an encouraging day in the market yesterday, okay? Yeah.

And you noticed it, I noticed it, a little bit of buying in some of the magnificent seven. I saw some buying in Palantir, I saw some buying in NVIDIA, in Meta, in Robinhood, etc. And, you know, Tesla had a good day yesterday, it's not doing so good today, however.

So it at least looked encouraging. And I saw the stocks that led the market in the first quarter of this year, the Philip Morris's and the Johnson & Johnson's and the Procter & Gamble's of the world. I saw them as a source of funds yesterday with money leaving those areas of the market, which looked to be a safe haven here in the first quarter of the year. But we had some encouraging action.

uh yesterday ahead of today now if you probably know by now that uh at 4 p.m today now there may be some leaks there may be some announcements prior to that to help uh alleviate all of the suspense but at 4 p.m in the rose garden of the white house

I never promised you a Rose Garden, but there is one at the White House, and his whole cabinet, Trump's whole cabinet, will be there as he announces Liberation Day. And what all that entails, well, I don't think that we're declaring independence from Great Britain today, Jeff.

The redcoats. But I think in his mind, we're declaring independence from other countries around the world taking advantage of us. I've got to believe that that's what's behind this all. Or our dependency on those countries, right? Yeah, in the supply chain. That's right. I mean, we're dependent on China. I see Walmart is freaking out.

Walmart is asking China to lower their prices by 10% on stuff that already has very thin margins in advance of the tariff day. And China's having a hard time saying, where are we going to come up with the 10%? It's going to have to be in quality, I would think, as if China's stuff isn't bad enough already.

So yeah, Liberation Day, the pharmaceuticals really took it hard yesterday. There were a couple of reasons for that. The biotech sector got whomped, just clobbered yesterday. And a couple of key guys are leaving the FDA or HHS, one of those,

Maybe it's the CDC because they don't like Robert Kennedy Jr., RFK Jr. And you had one guy especially who's pretty well known in the biotech world leaving his post. That had something to do with it, number one. Number two, the other reason was fear of tariffs. Okay, how many of the drug companies depend on components of their drugs that come from overseas? Right.

and now they could be facing tariffs, okay? Johnson & Johnson was down 7.5% yesterday. Just when you thought that was a safe haven, all of a sudden it's in trouble. I mean, they can't get anything right at Johnson & Johnson, even baby powder, but it has been a safe haven in the first quarter of this year. So tariffs take center stage today.

Trump is slated to formally announce country-based tariffs. Will it be the same across the board? Will it be 20% for Mexico, 5% for Portugal, 10% for China? We don't know. We don't know which countries will be targeted, nor do we know at which rate. And therein lies the rub, Jeff. The market doesn't like uncertainty.

I don't think human beings like uncertainty. You know, when we get on an airplane, we want to know, we want to be certain that we've got a qualified pilot, that the weather's been cleared for safety, that the runway has been cleared, that all of the air traffic controllers are in place and qualified and on the job. And the market wants clarity, too. It does not like uncertainty. And...

That's the problem. When I go to a new Mexican restaurant, Jeff, you ever do that? There's a lot of uncertainty there. And eight times out of ten, I come home with a stomachache or have a stomachache the next day. The food is lousy, one grade above Taco Bell. And, you know, so that's the way the market looks at AI right now, one grade above Taco Bell.

And it's just very, very nervous. And the more nervous you are as an investor, you've got to be really, really nervous. Okay, now, as we mentioned yesterday, the European stocks have been a safe haven in the first quarter of this year. But guess what? They're going to wake up to a whole new world tomorrow.

And we don't know if it will be a blanket across the board, which I think probably more than likely the EU will be painted with the same brush. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 20% tariff against anything coming from an EU country. I think Great Britain will be handled a little bit differently, however.

because they're not part of the EU, and it seems like he hinted at, you know, they've made some progress in negotiations with Great Britain, so...

Wouldn't you think that that's a pretty fair assessment somewhere in the 15 to 20 range across the board against the EU? Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. I mean, I'm curious to see if the tariffs are going to just, hey, this is it. Or as a country, if you're willing to drop, you know, your taxes, your fees and stuff like that for our people to do business with your country, then we would reciprocate.

I'm curious to see what that looks like. You know, the thing is, is like Europe is is is threatening a 50 percent tariff on American whiskey. Right. Right. So Trump's like, well, then I'm going to I'm going to do a 200 percent tariff on alcoholic beverages that come in from your country. Scotch. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So.

I'm seeing a 25% tariff for Canada and Mexico.

We've seen some potential increases in duty fees with China, and China's countering saying, well, then we're going to increase taxes on goods that your farmers produce for our people by 15%. Yeah, and how far does it go? You know, SAP, for instance, SAP is a German company. If I do business with SAP and they do some software for me, is that going to be tariffed because they're out of Germany?

Or will it be on services? Will it be on just products? Now, Mercedes-Benz is pulling all of their low-end cars. They're not going to be sending any more to the U.S. until things are worked out because they're already on a fairly thin profit margin. So a lot of chaos, a lot of unknowns out there. We'll get a little more certainty at 4. We'll be back. It's the Best Stocks Now show.

And welcome back here to the second episode.

Quarter of today's Best Stocks Now show. Yeah, you know, we just went positive a little bit on the day. It seems to me the market's handling it pretty well. Maybe it's priced in the worst case scenario already. Could that be the case? Because we did have a 10% sell-off in the NASDAQ in the first quarter of this year, but that really doesn't tell the whole story. You get into the NVIDIAs and the METAs,

And the Microsoft, and it was more of a 15% to 20% sell-off. And now they're starting to show up on my value screens. I did begin the value portfolio yesterday with two buys. And this one is going to be a little bit more easy on the stomach.

buying stocks at their lows. A lot of stocks I buy at their highs. I like buying them when they break out of sideways trends. That's the beginning of a new uptrend. But you've had a lot of really good stocks that have come down pretty hard and are now building that sideways base on a relative basis. They're a heck of a lot cheaper where they were prior to this. And when I look at their...

average p e ratios over time on a relative basis so it's a relative value fund it's not your typical uh some of the parts uh intrinsic value it's a relative value fund and i did find one yesterday uh two actually uh that i may purchase and it's going to own more stocks it's

We're going to own about 40 stocks in that portfolio, Jeff. If it ever gets fully invested, it's going to take time. And I'm sending out every new buy. And we manage that fund. For those of you who want a little bit smoother, less bumpy, because growth stocks can be volatile. But over time, it's been worth the volatility, obviously. What was TQQ? What did we figure out? You guys went up there to...

Help ring the closing bell with ProShares, TQQ. What was the average? It was 30% a year. It's double the NASDAQ for the last 10 years. But how much volatility has there been? How many big spills has there been along the way? So you have to be able to put up with that. That's the tradeoff. Now, the good news today so far, I like the jobs report.

U.S. private sector job growth surges. We like that word, surges in March. An 84% increase over February, Bill. That's pretty good. How many of those are government workers, though, I wonder? Could that be going to the private sector? This is the private payrolls bill, and it went from 84,000 in February to 155,000.

In March, so that represents an 84% increase. Yes. I mean, I think they were forecasting 115,000, and they showed 155, so that's a little about 34% higher than what they were expecting. That's the first jobs report I'm going to mark down on Trump's scorecard now that he's been in since January 20th.

This Friday we'll get the official one, which is the non-farm payroll. I always want to know how many jobs the farm's added, but I guess I've got to look elsewhere for that, Jeff. Idaho, how many potato farmers did they add? I don't know why they leave the farmers out, but...

We'll get that on Friday. Okay, Liberation Day. Will this be a holiday, a federal holiday at some point in time, April the 2nd? It's finally here. Make America wealthy again. Mawah. Do you have your flag out today, Bill?

Yeah, it was made in China, though, is the problem. And I'm going to have to pay a tariff. There's been a whole slew of reports of what will and won't be included in today's announcement. So far, the Trump administration has revealed that tariffs will start with all countries and will be effective immediately. Okay. And then, of course, I mean, countries like Venezuela...

And Iran and even Russia, I mean, they're going to be dealt with even more harshly. Here's what I heard about Venezuela. So I was reading this morning that any country that purchases gas from Venezuela will face a 25% tariff. That's right. That's right. Has nothing to do with...

But if you're going to do business with an organization or a country that is highly against the principles that we support here in the United States, you're going to pay the price as it relates to business with us as a country. And he's threatening to do the same thing against Russia, by the way. Yes.

Russia is selling a lot more oil. That is their economy. Eighty percent of Russia's economy is oil. And if we were to start putting tariffs on any country buying oil from Russia, that would be a big pinch there.

for Vladimir Putin, right? Now, one country, Bill, that's actually responding favorably is Vietnam. You know, we talked yesterday about tennis shoes, you know, so our Decker Outdoors, you know, our Hoka tennis shoes, Nike,

Puma, Adidas, they're all manufactured in Vietnam. Oh, Vietnam now. Wow. They are reducing import taxes from 10% to 5%. 85% of their GDP comes from their exports. They've agreed to launch Elon Musk's Starlink on a trial basis, although it's several years.

And the PM of Vietnam, he jokingly said, I am willing to show up

to Mar-a-Lago, and I will gulf the entire day with President Trump if it will lead to a positive resolution between our respective countries as it relates to balance of trade. So we're not dealing with Ho Chi Minh anymore. Sounds a little more friendly than Ho Chi Minh. But I will say this, that, you know, I've noticed Decker's, it's on my list.

candidate list for the I mean nothing fits the relative value model more than Decker's which is the biggest loser in the S&P 500 I would be looking to get back in and now that I know that they're built in Vietnam and Vietnam's going to be traded favorably that would and Nike I think could be a value play at this point in time

That's interesting that I did not see that news. Okay, Moody's. I'm going to say Moody's does not like Trump. They're rather moody these days.

They see recession odds at 40% this year or the next 12 months. That's an outlier. I've just noticed the companies that don't like Trump are lowering their S&P 500 target prices. And by the way, the GOP did lose the Wisconsin race last night. It looks like Wisconsin is pretty shaky there.

But the Florida, the two GOP won in heavily GOP areas, but the margins were not as great. So I'm sure that causes some concern. Will it change the tariff rhetoric and the tariff numbers today? He's got a lot riding on the tariffs. That's all I can say. I mean, really.

His whole presidency may hang on this whole tariff thing. Okay, we'll be right back and talk about some individual companies and how they're dealing with it. This is the Best Docs Now Show.

This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today's Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can.

To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersenCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services, call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show. The Instigator Because there's something in there

We've got to get together sooner or later.

And she, the opponent, or the Democrat won versus the Republican. Okay, so is that a little bit of a vote against Elon Musk? At least it is in Wisconsin. But let's talk business here. His deliveries for the first quarter of 2025 fall short of the consensus by quite a bit.

The street was looking for 377,000 deliveries. Now remember, BYD delivered almost a million yesterday. So BYD is now three times more deliveries in a quarter than...

And he came up way short. Instead of $377,000, he came in at $337,000. He missed the estimates by 40,000 cars. The stock is down 3% today. But I'm seeing some pretty favorable technicals forming in Tesla today.

It doesn't really qualify. Maybe a relative value. It's gone from $488 down to $260. All right. It's been almost cut in half. But you've still got to agree. It reminds me, Bill, of some of my favorite double black diamond ski runs there at Breckenridge, Colorado. Yeah. Very steep since the middle of February. Equally as bumpy. Yeah. Looks like they went up a small ski lift.

to try to get back up, and now they're going back down a small hill. Yeah, I see it settling right now, kind of. I see a number one sideways trend being formed. But the P.E. ratio is 111. It ain't cheap. And for me, I like B.Y.D.D.F. and X.P.E.V. better. If I were going to own companies in the E.V. market,

because they won't be impacted by the tariffs because they don't sell to the U.S. And Tesla has become an unpopular brand. I mean, and he's competing against China. His China sales continue to fall. Sweden, one of their big insurance companies, had $160 million worth of shares in Tesla.

They sold it all. Sweden does not like Elon Musk's concerns over the automaker's labor practices, specifically his refusal to allow unionization and sign collective bargaining agreements. So, yes, I mean, he has kept the unions out of Tesla. I think you could have a long, long debate whether or not the UAW has been good for the U.S. auto industry yet.

or whether it has been bad for the U.S. auto industry. Well, in theory, as an employer, if you take care of your employees, you shouldn't need a union. The question is, are those employees working there because, hey, this is the best possible job I can get, or are they saying, no, this is a terrific place to work and we don't need a union? Yeah, well, when we go back to Bloomfield Hills here in a few months...

I always hear from boots on the ground there. And I would just say the vast majority of people we meet with, which just outside of Detroit, just outside of Motown, don't like the unions. Okay, that's just the people we talk to. They're management folks as opposed to the line workers, right?

Tesla's China-made EV sales decline 11.5% year over year. So he's got a Europe problem. Europe's letting in the cheaper chicken models of the EVs from China, the cheaper China chicken models to compete. Wells Fargo absolutely hates Elon Musk and Tesla.

They've been a bear on Tesla for a long time. They still say Tesla could fall 50% after their deliveries, earnings, and cyber cab rollout disappoints. So Mark Wells Fargo as a non-fan of Tesla and Elon Musk. Now, is it time to look at Rivian and Lucid? Rivian, I wonder how much of the disgruntled Musk thing

fans that Rivian's picking up. Rivian stock is actually headed in the right direction. It's a $12.47 stock, $12.47, and they're still unprofitable. They're still losing a lot of money. That's my issue with Rivian. And they're not cheap. And who knows how much of their cars are made. I don't know. Where are they getting their batteries? Where are they getting their ignition switches? I don't know. That's all going to be...

disclosed at some point. Lucid's down around $2 a share. I have my doubts about their survivability. And, of course, Mercedes-Benz is pulling entry-level vehicles from the U.S. market over tariff concerns. So I'll have to check in with Tommy Baker. You know, Tommy Baker is the local. He owns every dealership in Charleston, just about, I think.

He's a long time. He's an old southern gentleman. And he hangs out at one of Charleston's famous steakhouses with a bunch of guys. Yeah, a bunch of guys. And we always say hi to him. He knows my wife and myself. We don't hang out there. We're not regulars. We go out.

on an irregular basis when I want a good steak at a high price, you know. But the atmosphere there, one night we sat next to Dabo Sweeney, you know, the head coach at Clemson, and

We see another guy. I don't know that he's alive anymore, but he wore a big Super Bowl ring on his finger from the San Francisco 14. It's where the movers and shakers hang out in Charleston. And I'm going to ask Tommy Baker next time I see him what he thinks of Charleston.

These auto tariffs. We'll get it right from the horse's mouth. Maybe you and I will go over there tomorrow. I'll meet you there at 5 o'clock. I'll introduce you to Tommy Baker.

Let's do it. And we'll see if he'll come on the radio. He has got the Charleston accent like you cannot. He bends over and kisses the lady's hands. He's got white hair and a white mustache. Just an elegant kind of guy. Quite a character, brother. I follow a few different auto dealer bloggers, and there's one guy up in Cleveland.

that has done a pretty good job of getting a social media. And I think they're pretty conservative folks, but they are very, very frustrated with these tariffs. Yes, I got to believe them. They're big Mercedes dealers. They get people coming in from all over the country. They're one of the top ten Mercedes dealers in the entire country. Yeah. And very, very concerned.

about what's going to happen and how that's going to impact their business. Well, I mean, Tommy Baker's got Maserati, Alfa Romeo, which is Stellantis. He's got Range Rover, which is India, believe it or not. Tata Motors, he's got Jaguar, he's got Mercedes. I've got to believe that he's older, he's made his money better,

But still, he's still a competitive guy and still a hard charger. So anyways, we'll see. I see that Mitsubishi Motors reports their Q1 sales up 11% year over year. Mitsubishi's in the crosshairs. Toyota's in the crosshairs. Nissan's in the crosshairs. Honda's in the crosshairs. We'll see where they end up.

Most of these Germany or Japan cars. Meta wants to enter the Chinese market. Well, they've got to go through the U.S. Senate panel review in their efforts to enter China. I have noticed that Meta stock is still a little wobbly.

But of the Magnificent 7, it's still one of my favorite stocks in that space. Okay. I like it a heck of a lot better than I like Tesla. How about the Autonomous? You know, that's just something, boy, I just don't know if we're ever going to. It's out there somewhere. But between Uber, WeRide, Google,

Even Amazon. Aurora Innovation. Aurora Innovation, Pony. Man, those stocks are just all over the place. Well, Rewride is teaming up with Uber in Dubai. Right.

in Dubai, wherever there's a little bit of money over there. You talk about Hall's Chop House and the big guys hanging out. What about the Dubai Hilton? You know, that's where the big place is over there. That's where the Middle East gets together and does business. Okay, when we come back, is Target. Target's got a 12 PE. Schwab's got a 13 PE.

How about Petco? What's going on at Petco? And Anheuser-Busch has a new brand, and they've got a low P.E. ratio. We'll be right back. ♪♪♪

And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Docs Now show. Padres 5-0. I know. Say it. Dodgers are 6-0. We're a half a K-Val. It's a pennant race, Jeff. We're in it to win it. I like that name.

It's the first time that two NL West teams are going to go undefeated. 11-0 between them, yeah. Except when they play each other, right? Yeah. That would be a miracle, Bill. Well, my little wife was at the game last night against Cleveland and saw a 7-0 shutout against the Cleveland Indians. So I got to talk about boots on the ground report. I got a high heels on the ground report from the third row at Petco.

I'll say the Padres are my third favorite team behind my Dodgers and my wife's Angels. Yeah, the Angels. Anybody from L.A. likes those Angels too because they're Orange County. They represent Orange County. The Dodgers are L.A. I was a Dodger fan until my dad left L.A. when I was 8 or 9 years old. Remained a Dodger fan until the Padres got a team in 1969.

So I was 12, 13 years old by that point in time and slowly moved my allegiance away from the – I learned that Dodgers were now the enemy. They're the ones that come down to San Diego and bring their fans and wipe out the Padres. I've always been kind of an underdog kind of guy rooting for the underdogs. Okay, here's a concept, speaking of underdogs. There was a very well-known – I used to teach seminars on this concept.

David Dreman, D-R-E-M-A-N. I don't know if he's still alive. If he is, I mean, he looked really old like 10 years ago. I can't imagine what he looks like today. He was a favorite on Bloomberg, on Wall Street Week with Lou Rukeyser. He was a favorite on The Value, in Forbes, in Barron's, etc.,

And he did a study. If you take the five valuation measures, price to sales, price to earnings, price to cash flow, price to book, I guess four, those four, and you sort them, okay? Do a sort on the 5,000 stocks, whatever there were. I think he did it on about 2,500 or 3,000 stocks.

And let's divide them up into quintiles. Let's take the lowest 20% of P-E ratios and compare them against the overall market. Let's take the lowest 20% of price to sales, compare them against the best of the market, and so on. And his studies found, now you've got to keep in mind, these studies were done from 1975 to 2000.

It would be interesting to go back and do that study on 2000 to 2025. In fact, that would be a great book to write to update the Dreamland model. But he found that the bottom 20%, Jeff, P-E ratios outperformed the market by a fairly wide margin.

And as you went up in quintiles, your performance decreased. So if you were buying stocks in the top 20% of the market as far as P-E ratio, you severely underperformed the S&P 500. But once again, that was a different period of time in the market when value played more of a role. I would say the last 25 years, people have tended towards growth at a reasonable price

I don't know that you would find those same results over the last 25 years. And I know that his methodology, which he strictly adhered to, he had a mutual fund, a couple of mutual funds. He was one of the richest guys in New York, and he used to go up and down the Hudson River in his boat named Contrarian, a big white yacht. And he'd sit on the back looking for those bottom 20% P.E. ratios,

And it did very well from 1975 to 2000. But I just got to say, as I look at the bottom quintile right now of P-E ratios, I find a lot of really dud stocks.

I mentioned some. I mean, Budweiser's got a very low P.E. ratio right now. Schwab has a very low P.E. ratio right now. The aforementioned Petco. And I see even a Philip Morris that has a P.E. ratio of 12. It would definitely be in the bottom quintile. I would say that those stocks had a good quarter, the first quarter of this year.

But I would think that if you did the research, you have to do a back test, which it can be done. The data is there to perform back tests. It wouldn't be that hard to do. Year by year, you start the year with the bottom 20% and see how they perform versus the market S&P 500 and against the other quintiles in the market.

He did it on each valuation ratio, price to book value, price to sales, price to cash flow, and price to earnings, P-E ratio, those four. And he found that in every case during that 25-year period of time, they outperformed the market. I don't know about now. It almost whets my appetite to update that study in today's world almost.

we've had 25 years now i've been in the business since 2000. it's been my experience that the higher pe growth stocks have done much much just look at the nasdaq how much it's outperformed the dow i think that tells you that the higher pe stocks and if that is the case why is that why has the market shifted from this really strict valuation methodology

to more interest in growth of earnings. Well, I've said it before. Growth, maybe there weren't as many good growth stocks back then. I don't know. But stock valuations follow growth. That's been my observation. Anyways, we're going to end with that because we're out of time. I don't have a Rose Garden invite. I'll be watching from my cable set.

and finding out what kind of world we're going to wake up to when the market opens tomorrow, because there's going to be a lot of changes between now and then. And there's going to be a lot of adjustments along the way as the hog trading begins, the horse trading begins.

But, you know, the bar is going to be set after the close of the market today. So far, the market seems to be okay. Maybe it's used to it. Maybe it's priced in the worst case scenario. Or maybe we're going to have one heck of a sell off tomorrow. You got to keep all those possibilities in the back of your mind.

Meanwhile, I take it one day at a time. I take it one stock at a time. I've seen many, many tumultuous moments in the market over the last 25 years. It's good to have somebody with some experience on your side. Give us a call at 855-611-BEST to set up an appointment or to try the four-week trial. See what we're buying in the new value fund.

Go to GundersonCapital.com. That's GundersonCapital.com. Hey, this has been so much fun. I think I'll come back and do it again tomorrow. Have a good day, everybody.

This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIPC and FINRA.