S&P 500 Soars: Analyzing the Impact of the Latest Jobs Report

We are looking at the S&P 500 hitting a new record high, and this does come after the US jobs report.

Well, joining me here live on the floor is Peter Tuchman, senior floor trader at Trademo.

Good morning.

Good morning, Peter.

So good to have you here.

I know that you're thinking about your vacation as we approach the holiday weekend, but the S&P 500 hitting new record highs, and this does come on the heels of that jobs report.

Non-farm payroll 140.

4K and unemployment falling to 4.1%.

So what did you make of the report?

You know, it's spectacular.

I, you know, look, it's hard to know.

The thing that's kept us focused for the last number of months is obviously tariffs and obviously the war in the Middle East, right?

We got our attention diverted for a while and it feels like there's a lot of good stuff going on behind closed doors as far as the deals and tariffs, but at the end of the day the economy seems strong.

And the economy has been strong throughout all of this, right?

The whole tariff thing was just an extension, unfortunately, a sort of problematic extension of an economy that was strong.

We saw it coming to the end of 24 and we saw it coming into the beginning of 25.

So if we had not gone through that little bit of a blip, it was a painful blip as we spoke, we all talked through it from February 19th to April 9th, you know, if it wasn't for that little sort of negative experience.

The underlying economy has been strong along the way.

The earnings have been strong along the way.

Yes, guidance has been tough with the once again with the tariffs, but at the end of the day, the economy is strong.

This is a spectacular number even though for those who don't know, 0.1% doesn't seem like a lot to the general public, but 1.1% in terms of unemployment is huge, right?

That number 44 to 4.2%, we've been fighting it.

And if we're going in the right direction and we're going down, more jobs created, more, you know, and you.

Think about that.

People's fear was that with tariffs, right, which are still looming and my gut is that good things will come of it.

At the end of the day, job creation is so important.

Earnings are so important.

So everything that came out today is amazing.

Yeah, and job creation, the labor market is important for the US economy whether we're talking about Wall Street or Main Street.

And at the same time, there's a lot of tension between the president and the head of the.

Bank, namely Jay Powell.

So much better than expected a headline figure as well as the unemployment rate coming down, what does this mean for interest rates, Peter?

OK, so the whole problem that Jay Powell has had versus the president as far as cutting interest rates was that fear of stagflation, which happens when you're in a low growth or no growth environment.

The only thing that made this economy low growth or no growth was the tariffs, the uncertainty around the tariffs and the financial stress that the Tariffs we're going to put on the market overall now that things are, it's a little bit off the table.

My gut is I did an interview last night with Dan Ives, right, my guru.

We'll have to have him on the.

Yes.

We are going to arrange that.

I promise you after July 4th we'll have him on.

At the end of the day he feels that we are framing up, we're going to be settling into about 10% across the board as far as tariffs go, which would be a gift, right?

And then maybe on the high end 15%.

So that will be good.

And at the end of the day, you know.

This will set the stage for a more even.

Environment or agreement between Jay Powell and the president to decide, OK, you know what, now that we don't really feel that cutting rates would cause stagflation, right, which is inflation with no growth, which is a hard place to navigate out of, we've managed to navigate out of it in some way, you know, the president has this amazing ability to sort of create a bit of drama and then navigate his way out of it.

It's at the end of the day, all that matters is where we end up, right?

The journey, if you're on the journeys.

Sometimes it's not a pretty one, but if we end up in the right place, that's a good thing.

And so I think that's where we are now.

Oh, but your question was about Jay Powell and the president.

My gut is that interest rates will probably get cut, but that's going to be OK in the environment that we're creating and framing up right now.

If we cut 1 or 2 times this year, it will, it will once again be a gasoline on the on the on the markets and will surge us to record highs.

We are now at record highs, 5 out of the last 6 days.

S&P has been trading has been up and we are as of yesterday midday and today so far we are at record highs.

Nasdaq record highs, you know, I know you're going to ask me what numbers am I looking for, and the numbers are getting higher and higher as we as we sort of take off into the strates absolutely yeah, and we have less than 30 seconds here.

So this is the time of year when we spend more time with family, and it's not Thanksgiving, but I think it's important that we don't become immune. to what's actually happening around the world in terms of geopolitics and politics and some of the concerns about the economy.

So what is your advice as we head out to see our friends and family?

You know what, look, I'm hopeful that, you know, for a while there it really felt difficult to to for family to get together because people were so polarized right by whether which side of the country they were on or politically.

I'm hoping that things settle down here for a little bit, you know, I think we're in a good place economically.

The markets are trading at record highs.

People don't need to be sitting here the way we felt in April where our 401k was a 201k.

I think everybody should go home and enjoy the weekend in a really positive way.

We're in a good place and we've framed up a really good looking towards the third quarter, and so the market's super solid.

OK, Peter, thank you so much for joining us ahead of trading.