Earnings projections plunge as tariffs stoke market uncertainty

Second quarter earnings projections plunge as tariffs fuel uncertainty, signaling potential volatility in the months ahead.

Transcript

00:00For the immediate term, for the short term, for Q2, I think volatility will remain high.

00:06I think at best market will trade sideways, but we'll likely see more

00:10weakening here because remember, we still have earnings estimates yet to come.

00:14I would say for investors, keep your eye on earnings,

00:17see what the earnings impact is going to be and what companies are projecting them to be.

00:21That's usually the best guideposts for what we could see in the months ahead.

00:25It's very difficult to say right now as far as a strong Q2 earnings season.

00:31Before the announcement by Trump on April 2nd, we were projecting somewhere around 5%

00:37earnings growth, which is slightly lower than what we were expecting at the beginning of the year.

00:42Given the announcements on Tuesday, April 2nd, I think it's likely that they come down even more.

00:49We could even see somewhere around 2% to 3% growth, but that's based off a lot of assumptions.

00:55Anyone that takes a high conviction view right now or makes forecast changes on either economic

01:01growth or earnings estimate is really rolling the dice because there's just too much uncertainty.

01:06Remember, markets do not like uncertainty. It's not even a matter of bad news,

01:10it's the change in the bad news that drives volatility.