9 stories we are following this morning.
1. The markets are down by what some might call astounding numbers pre market. The S&P 500 by more than 3% and the Nasdaq almost by 4%.
2. When I first looked at the futures late last night I did a double take and thought it was a misprint.
3. President Trump announced widespread tariffs late yesterday and the markets are reacting very negatively. In the best case scenario, these become a stance for negotiations and some or many roll back somewhat over time. It will be interesting to see how these play out over time.
4. In this changing economy we are very excited to have a sponsored webinar April 9 on growing revenues and business in a changing environment. We are joined by Sean Carson at Sales Empowerment Group. Register no charge.
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5. RH is down 27% pre market on missed earnings. They do the most corporate PR jobs of trying to talk up all that’s good and then dropping in that they missed earnings. Like the play was great except for the shooting. it’s hard to trust what they say. They work so hard on messaging.
6. Is Larry Fink slippery? Recently he had been speaking on a change in the traditional asset allocation mix from the traditional 60/40 allocation to something they are calling 50/30/20 with 20% in alternative assets. Here BlackRock, his firm, is the worlds largest asset manager with more than $10 trillion under management. Fidelity and Vnaguard hold huge numbers of assets but they are viewed for some of them as custodial not management. Thus BlackRock has the crowd.
But their margins and total value compared based on assets under management pales compared to the big private equity funds Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, Inc. and KKR. This is because those firms are focused on alternative assets with higher fees than public assets. Public equities, bonds and stocks, hover between 25 and 100 basis points for fees. Lower with index funds and ETFS. Alternative assets are typically paid 2% plus a piece of the profits. And often more for VC and many special vehicles. Larry Fink and BlackRock are trying to push their portfolios under management to a higher percentage to alternative assets. This would greatly increase their margins. It seems convenient that it’s the same time that he is greatly expanding his talking on a new portfolio allocation that would also greatly help the profits at his firm. He could perhaps explain the benefit to BlackRock as he talks new allocations.
7. Big name stocks like Apple are down 7% pre market.
8. Some of the big retail brands are down more or less pre market based on their dependence on import export and overseas manufacturing. Eg, adidas fell 10%, Nike nearly 9% pre market and Walmart is down 6%.
9. Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast is not affiliated with Becker’s Healthcare. More from Becker’s Healthcare later today.