A few "choice phrases" from the president can swing markets
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How market prices hang on a few syllables from the President of the United States.

I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. The stock market is open with wind at its back. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1,100 points, 2.8 percent. The S&P is up 3.3 percent. The Nasdaq is up 4.1 percent. Market participants tell us this is President Trump saying he's not going to fire the supposedly independent guardian of interest rates, Jerome Powell, at the Federal Reserve.

It comes after the president had been casting shade on Powell for days, boasting that Powell's termination could not come fast enough. Plus, Trump said he foresees U.S.-China tariffs coming way down. Let's say good morning to Susan Schmidt, portfolio manager at Exchange Capital Resources.

Good morning. Wow. A couple of phrases from the president and everybody gets a little spring in their step, everybody being market professionals. You're watching that. Absolutely. And that's the kind of volatility we're seeing right now. A couple choice phrases from President Trump and the administration that gives investors a lot of confidence. And we're seeing that rebound in the market this morning and expectations for bolstering.

Better, rosier picture ahead with those indices up over 2.5%, 3% now as we're looking at this and investors really just...

Turning 180 degrees on sentiment on this. This is also still the season when companies report how they did in the first three months of this year and give hints about the road ahead. A lot of consumer facing companies this week. I see Chipotle we're waiting on, Southwest Airlines, Pepsi-Cola. These are all companies that are trying to figure out how, for instance, higher tariffs will affect biz.

That's right. And companies that don't really have a clear guideline yet. No one knows how tariffs are going to impact them. Volatility causes problems for investors. They tend not to like it. And that tends to have them move to the sidelines more often than not.

We'll see what happens here and how confident investors can be to get involved once we hear more about how consumers might be handling this uncertainty as well. Analyst Susan Schmidt at Exchange Capital Resources. Thank you so much. Thank you. The Financial Times talked to a half dozen companies that sell their products online as third parties on Amazon and Walmart.

Those companies have taken to filling warehouses in Canada with products made in China, essentially stocking up to wait out what they see as a temporary stretch of high tariffs. Again, Trump told reporters yesterday he thinks U.S.-China tariffs will come down substantially. They're at 145 percent now, but the president said yesterday, quote, it won't be anywhere near that number. Bonds are up, allowing the 10-year interest rates to drop to 4.29 percent.

Elon Musk says he'll spend more time managing Tesla and much less time working with the Trump administration to cut federal programs. This after profits at Musk's electric car company came in 38 percent lower than estimated. Tesla stock is up 3.6 percent in early trading now.

Tesla dealerships have been targets of protests over Elon Musk's and his Doge Group's cost-cutting efforts at the federal government, and that's cost the automaker. Its first quarter results out yesterday showed profits plunged 70%, with Tesla rescued in large part through sales of regulatory credits to other automakers.

But Elon Musk, as he often does, directed attention to the future, telling analysts in a call that he would soon spend more time at Tesla. Starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to Doge will drop significantly. Musk did still promise to spend one or two days a week working with the Trump administration. I'm Novosafo for Marketplace.

One option for China, given the trade war, is for policymakers there to compensate for reduced exports by encouraging domestic consumption. Maybe retirees could spend more on travel. There are silver trains for that. The BBC's Stephen McDonald went aboard. The karaoke microphone is being passed around and the cocktail preparations are in full swing.

On board one of the new silver trains, named this way because of the hair colour of the passengers, is Daniel Ling. Along with a group of his retired friends, he's tucking into a plate of barbecued goose, washed down with Chinese white spirit alcohol.

We have been working so hard for many years. So I'm 66 years old. So important thing is that when we reach this year, this age, we must know what is the right thing to do and must really enjoy our life.

These silver trains are an attempt to turn an economic problem into an economic solution. Every year the proportion of older people here becomes greater with lower birth rates, making it harder for the economy to sustain them. But what if specialist trains could take retirees with plenty of time and cash to places they've never been where they could spend some of their retirement money and boost the local economy?

Dr. Huang Huang, research associate from the China Tourism Academy, has been studying the potential impact of this plan. The main places where the silver trains will stop are rural areas or small towns with less developed economies. Though these big city travelers will consume various products on the trains,

After they pool into a station, they will also visit tourist attractions and traditional villages. It has huge development potential. In Baisha, built by the Naxi ethnic minority, our retirees are off the train and checking out the modest street stalls at the bottom of old two-storey wooden houses. In the street I'm standing in, you can buy cured meats...

potatoes with spicy sauce, fresh orange juice, lamb and the clothing of the local Nashi people. If only the smallest percentage of China's retirees take a silver train, this can mean millions of ticket sales. Yet even with growth of this magnitude, these trips alone are not going to fix China's difficulties with low consumer spending. The problem is just too big.

However, economists would say at least it's a step in the right direction. In China, I'm the BBC's Stephen McDonnell for Marketplace. And in Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio. It's the Marketplace Morning Report. If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance.

Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of. I'm the host, Janelia Espinal, and each week I ask experts important money questions like how to negotiate job offers, how to choose a college that you can afford, and how to talk about money with friends and family. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.