1. The job market and the Fed calm the markets. The job market seems to be softening just a bit but not horribly. This can hit the Goldilocks spot of just soft enough to over time lead to rate cuts but not soft enough to cause huge disruption or a deep recession. The Fed also hit it down the middle yesterday.
2. Big banks small layoffs. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs all appear on track for small reductions but not enough to cause huge concern. Of course we never understate the impact on the person who loses their job.
See Yahoo Finance. “Wall Street banks are starting to cut what could be thousands of workers as new economic uncertainties mount.”
3. Tesla, Carvana and Stellantis. More calls at Tesla for Elon to spend more time there. The stock is down more than 41% year to date. Carvana which is up 122% over the last 52 weeks tanked Tuesday and recovered today. It’s moving into the new car business too. Probably a mistake. Stellantis continues to struggle and is down year to date and nearly 60% over the last year.
“Musk needs to change course here … Tesla’s future depends on it,” Ives said, adding that Tesla is going through a “crisis” and that Musk is the only one who can fix it.” Yahoo Finance quoting Dan Ives.
4. Thrilled to interview Steven Richards head of health care investment banking at Palm Tree LLC. Incredibly gifted banker and leader. This was on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
5. We are very excited to have Imamu Tomlinson, MD, MBA, Alyssa Jaffee, Stephen Klasko and J.P. Gallagher speak on a keynote panel at the McGuireWoods LLP Health Care Private Equity Conf. Timothy Fry for more information. Vituity, 7wire Ventures , General Catalyst and Endeavor Health.
6. Excited to host Sean Carson Sales Empowerment Group on our next Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast webinar April 9th. Register no charge here. Here we will discuss growth strategies for mid sized and larger firms often sponsored by private equity.
7. Ok I’m so sick of this but most things aren’t binary. It’s not the dems are all wrong and the Republicans are all correct. It’s not that we shouldn’t spend a ton with universities but we should understand it. It’s not that Ukraine is totally right and Russia is totally wrong It’s not that Israel is 100% right and the Palestinians are wrong. On almost every issue the real truth lies somewhere in between. That’s just reality at least in my view. So if I say something I recognize almost always there is a middle position. And that spot is usually right. It’s not maga or woke. Stop with the extremes. You can say running a deficit of $2 trillion is bad and recognize there is a lot of blame everywhere for that.