Navigating Market Volatility: Insights from Wall Street Veteran Peter Tuchman

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

While the May jobs report here in the US showing non-farm payroll is coming in above forecast with a gain of 139,000.

But the economic data comes on the heels of a weak ADP report, as well as a shrinking trade deficit after a record high in March when businesses stockpiled ahead of tariffs.

Now jobless claims reached their highest level since October.

Now yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk saying Trump's tariff policies.

Trigger a recession in the second half of the year.

The comment part of an escalating feud between Trump and Musk, and this came after a user on X called the tariffs super stupid.

Well, Musk joins a long list of commentators trying to predict the US economy, a challenge that's tripped up plenty of so-called experts before.

Well, joining me at the end of a very busy week is Peter Tuchman, senior floor trader at Trademos.

So Peter, happy Friday.

What a week.

Yeah, well, yeah, so great to have you here.

So first and foremost, that jobs report coming in expectations and that may not harm payrolls showing a gain of 139,000, but there's a lot of noise out there in the market.

So how are you figuring out where the signal is right now?

You know what, look, we're sort of in a weird crossroads, you know, we've not really gotten the directionality of the market lately, right?

We've been ups and downs.

We've been really at the mercy of some of the tweets.

Right, I know we're we're basically a tweet away from Crazy town, right?

And so, you know, I think this is one good thing we're going to have to start to build some kind of the next catalyst that's going to take the market either higher or lower.

I think that the conversation between President Xi and President Trump yesterday was a really positive one.

They said in fact that the conversation was positive and I think that is really positive.

We've been waiting for a deal with China all. and we've been told whether it was by Lutnick or by Besset that deals are in the making and still until this day we've still not seen any deals etched in stone.

We heard about one with the UK.

We heard about one in July 9th with the with the UK, with the EU, right?

EU, UK, it's all good.

And now hopefully with China.

And so these are the things that are going to build the foundation for our markets going further and higher.

Yeah, and Peter, as someone who's been on Wall Street and on the trading floor for decades, you've seen a lot of volatility.

And when we see this drama playing out between the president and Musk on social media, it might make you shake your head, but it's been moving individual names as well as sectors.

So how are you making sense of all of this and what does this mean for investments?

So you know what, look, historically the politics and the markets don't usually interact, right?

I mean historically, right, when President Biden, we were not sitting here every day looking at what what his social media presence was going to be, or even in the past whether it was Bush, Clinton, or Reagan, and that was not what it was about, right?

And so it is a very, very Trump Trump centric situation.

And so at the end of the day, yes, the market has been reactive over the tweets and obviously Tesla has taken a big hit over a lot of this recent drama, right?

But at the end of the day I believe that the market should and will disengage a lot of.

Drama because at the end of the day it does not have major economic implications on markets, on what's happening on global economies, right?

Yes, it's in our lives, it's in our face, it's all over the place, but does it really impact?

Has anything significantly changed in a positive or negative way around these companies, around their products, around all of that?

What matters is jobs.

What matters is earnings and guidance.

What matters is tariffs, right?

That is a big deal.

If this drama impacts tariffs, then.

And it will obviously have an effect on the market, but you know, but the but the tabloid type of stuff, net net at the end of the day shouldn't, and I hope will not affect the markets.

Yeah, and Peter, as you mentioned, we'll keep an eye on what unfolds with these tariff discussions between the US and China.

But as we head into the weekend, Peter, we're keeping an eye on the S&P 500 in terms of key levels here.

We saw 6000, but as we continue to monitor the volatility.

Just today, not just for Q2, but also beyond.

What are specific levels that you're watching and why?

You know what I mean?

It's hard for me to even, I haven't even for the future.

OK, look, obviously we, we have gone, you know, from 45,000 down to 36,000, and we've regained so much of that on the Dow.

The S&P, we were at 6100, we got down to 5500, so we're inching our way back to 6000.

I mean, 6000 is either going to be a resistance or it's going to be net net built in support.

As we go higher, I mean, these are the levels that we've been at before.

We did not think we would be here so quickly, and I'm hoping that we're able to build support and build this as a foundational point to go higher from here.

It's really, you know, look, we, it's a miracle, and I don't think we could have predicted it when you and I were sitting here in the bowels of April when things were down 20+%, you know, I did say over and over, I said the only silver lining about a market that can go down 22% in such a short period of time is that it can go right back. up in just as fast a period of time and in fact it did go up even quicker and so that's a good thing.

But now we need whatever the economic data is to support it, whether it's jobs, whether it's deals in the making, whether it's the tariffs, whether they're going to be aggressive or passive, or where they're going to bid.

These are the things that are going to build this market and keep it strong and look forward to the future.

OK, Peter, thank you so much for joining me on this Friday morning.

We'll have you back bright and early on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

Happy training.

See you all on Monday.