The backdrop should be reassuring for many investors: A lively bull market, pro-business policies promised by the Trump administration and a Federal Reserve close to pulling off a soft landing. However, Wall Street’s biggest names aren’t sounding so bullish for the year ahead. Convening at an alternative investments conference in Miami this week, hedge-fund titans and industry pros collectively struck a cautious tone about elevated market valuations and potentially negative impacts from President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies. Point72′s Steve Cohen said he believes tariffs and an immigration crackdown will stoke inflationary pressures and hinder consumer spending. The family office head and Mets owner therefore expects the broader market to get bumpy , particularly in the second half of the year. “I don’t think that’s a great backdrop in 2025,” Cohen said at the iConnections Global Alts conference dubbed Hedge Fund Week. “I would expect the markets to top over the next couple months, if it hasn’t already topped already, and I would expect the second half to be a little tougher.” The S & P 500 just scored a second consecutive annual gain above 20%, and the two-year gain of 53% is the best since the nearly 66% rally in 1997 and 1998. The equity benchmark is up 3% year to date, but investors just got a taste of violent volatility this week. An artificial intelligence competitor out of China caused a massive sell-off in Nvidia and other megacap tech names earlier this week. Karen Karniol-Tambour, Bridgewater’s co-chief investment officer, said she holds a neutral view on the markets right now because of the duality of higher-than-expected growth and hotter-than-expected inflation. “It’s not a great time to really lean in and take a ton of risk,” she said. “You are, on the margin, more likely to get a strong growth and stronger-than-expected inflation environment, but that could change quickly, because with the amount of policy uncertainty you have, it’s not hard to imagine one policy change really tilting us in terms of the macro environment.” Karniol-Tambour, who helps manage the world’s largest hedge fund, added that the biggest opportunity she sees across public markets right now is rebuilding the fixed-income allocations. .SPX 1Y mountain S & P 500 Oaktree Capital co-founder Howard Marks, who’s already on bubble watch , told attendees that the Nvidia episode this week is indicative of “the pervasiveness of psychology and the irrationality of the markets in the short run.” Marks, a respected value investor who famously foresaw the dot-com bubble, said high-yield credit could serve as an appealing alternative to equities, given that most sell-side strategists project only measly returns this year in the boarder market. “If you can get low single-digit returns from the S & P 500 with great uncertainty and 7.3% from high-yield bonds contractually, isn’t it better?” Marks said. “Everybody should look at their holdings and try to make sure that the things they own, they own based on strong and improving fundamentals.”
Check out the companies making headlines after hours. Hewlett Packard Enterprise — Shares rose 3%, after the information technology company beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported second-quarter adjusted earnings of 38 cents per share on revenue of $7.63 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected earnings of 32 cents per share on revenue of $7.45 billion. CrowdStrike Holdings — The stock dropped more than 6%, after the cybersecurity company posted fiscal first-quarter results. Revenue of $1.10 billion came in line with what analysts polled by LSEG were anticipating. CrowdStrike posted adjusted earnings of 73 cents per share for the period, more than the consensus estimate of 65 cents per share. Guidewire Software — The software company for property and casualty insurers jumped more than 8%, after Guidewire Software exceeded third-quarter analysts’ expectations. The firm posted adjusted earnings of 88 cents per share on revenue of $294 million. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected earnings of 46 cents per share on revenue of $284 million. Asana — The enterprise work management software company slipped about 6% as its outlook failed to impress Wall Street. Asana sees second quarter adjusted earnings ranging between 4 cents and 5 cents a share, and revenue ranging from $192 million to $194 million. Analysts polled by LSEG sought 4 cents per share in earnings on $193 million in revenue. Wells Fargo & Co . — The stock rose 2%. Wells Fargo confirmed that the Federal Reserve has removed its limits on the bank’s asset cap, a restriction that was imposed back in 2018. HealthEquity – Shares rose 4% after the health savings account service provider raised its guidance for the full year. The company sees adjusted earnings landing between $3.61 to $3.78 per share and revenue ranging from $1.285 billion to $1.305 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet sought earnings of $3.62 per share and revenue of $1.30 billion.
Signage at a Citibank branch in New York, US, on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Citigroup on Tuesday ended a seven-year-old policy restricting how it provides banking services to firearm manufacturers, sellers and resellers.
The bank launched the policy in March 2018 after a teenage gunman killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14 that year.
Citi said at the time that it would require clients to “adhere to these best practices: (1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check, (2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and (3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.”
The bank’s policy applied only to its business clients, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500-sized companies. It did not restrict how Citi’s personal banking customers used their cards. Citi says it provides banking services to more than 19,000 companies globally.
“As a society, we all know that something needs to change. And as a company, we feel we must do our part,” Citigroup Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs Ed Skyler said in 2018.
But Skyler says things have changed. “The policy was intended to promote the adoption of best sales practices as prudent risk management and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms,” he wrote Tuesday in a blog post announcing that Citi “will no longer have a specific policy as it relates to firearms.”
“Many retailers have been following these best practices,” Skyler wrote, “and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.”
A spokesperson for the March for Our Lives, a gun-control advocacy group organized in part by students who survived the Parkland massacre, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The change at Citigroup comes amid broader political pressure over so-called “debanking,” with influential tech leaders and right-wing officials having alleged in recent years that the Biden administration was improperly blocking certain people, including cryptocurrency proponents and conservatives, from banking services.
That argument hasn’t gone away since President Donald Trump returned to the White House; he confronted the CEOs of America’s two largest banks — Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase — with similar complaints at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year. Both banks said at the time that they would never close an account for political reasons. Bank of America said, “We welcome conservatives and have no political litmus test.”
Citi said Tuesday that it would “update our employee Code of Conduct and our customer-facing Global Financial Access Policy to clearly state that we do not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation in the same way we are clear that we do not discriminate on the basis of other traits such as race and religion. This will codify what we’ve long practiced, and we will continue to conduct trainings to ensure compliance.”
Banking executives have repeatedly said they terminate banking services only when there are issues with anti-money laundering laws or know-your-client regulations, not because of political affiliations.
“We bank 70 million American consumers so our bank is open to everybody,” Bank of American CEO Brian Moynihan later said.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Ferguson Enterprises — Shares surged 15% after the cooling solutions company reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.50 per share, exceeding the $2.01 analysts had predicted, according to FactSet. Ferguson’s $7.62 billion in revenue was also above the $7.42 billion estimate. The company also slightly raised its full-year revenue growth guidance. Sitio Royalties — The mineral and royalty company soared 16% after agreeing to be acquired by Viper Energy , a subsidiary of Diamondback Energy. The deal, worth around $4.1 billion, is expected to close in the third quarter. Shares of Viper and Diamondback Energy both popped roughly 4%. EchoStar — The telecommunications stock slipped 6% after EchoStar disclosed in a regulatory filing that it would not make around $183 million in cash interest payments on a series of notes from its company Dish DBS. EchoStar said this nonpayment was made in light of recent uncertainty raised by the Federal Communications Commission. FactSet Research Systems — Shares slipped nearly 5% after the financial data provider announced that its board had appointed Sanoke Viswanathan as CEO. He will succeed Phil Snow in the role in early September. Signet Jewelers — Shares surged 10% after the world’s largest diamond retailer reported an earnings and revenue beat. Signet’s first-quarter adjusted earnings came in at $1.18 per share on revenue of $1.54 billion, beating the FactSet consensus estimates of $1.00 in earnings per share and $1.52 billion in revenue. Dollar General — Shares of the discount retailer jumped more than 14% after the company raised its full-year outlook and said its updated guidance assumes that current tariff rates will remain through mid-August. Dollar General also reported strong first-quarter earnings. The company posted earnings of $1.78 per share on revenue of $10.44 billion, while analysts polled by LSEG called for $1.48 in earnings per share and $10.31 billion in revenue. Hims & Hers Health — Shares shed about 2%. On Tuesday, the telehealth platform announced its acquisition of European counterpart Zava . The deal will boost Hims & Hers Health’s active customer base by about 50%. Constellation Energy — The energy giant added 1% on news that Meta Platforms entered a 20-year agreement to buy nuclear power from Constellation. Meta will purchase around 1.1 gigawatts of power from Constellation’s Clinton Clean Energy in Illinois beginning in 2027. Shares of Vistra and NRG Energy popped 5% and 1% in tandem, respectively. Bumble — The dating app’s stock lost 4% on the back of JPMorgan’s downgrade to underweight from neutral. JPMorgan said Bumble is losing market share to Hinge, a competitor. Pinterest — Shares added 4% after JPMorgan upgraded the social media platform to overweight from neutral . The bank said Pinterest has made progress on improving its monetization and adding new users. Credo Technology — Shares soared 17% after the high-speed connectivity product developer reported it had seen stronger-than-expected demand from hyperscalers. Credo also guided for fiscal first-quarter revenue of between $185 million and $195 million, exceeding the $162.4 million analysts polled by FactSet had expected. Block — The fintech stock added more than 2% following an upgrade to outperform from in line by Evercore ISI. The firm wrote that it had turned more positive after speaking to Block’s management about funding avenues across its lending portfolio. Parsons — Shares rallied 6% despite the defense technology company slashing its fiscal 2025 revenue outlook. As a reason, Parsons cited reorganization within the State Department that has contributed to increased uncertainty around a confidential contract. — CNBC’s Michelle Fox, Alex Harring and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
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