Joel Elconin, Co-Host of the Benzinga PreMarket Prep Show and Editor of the PreMarket Prep website, joins us to share his thoughts on retail sales, social media stocks, the real estate markets, and investing strategies. We start off by getting the technical levels Joel is watching in the general market indexes, and then some of the fundamental macroeconomic factors driving the moves we are seeing.
Even though a number of social media companies are under pressure, lead by the poor forward guidance from Snap Inc (SNAP), and spilling over into Meta Platforms/Facebook (FB), and Alphabet/Google (GOOGL), there are signs of green shoots in some tech like Zoom Video (ZM) and the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK). On the real estate front, new home starts were down 16.6% today, the worst in 9 years, and we discuss how the Fed rate hikes and the correlating mortgage rate increases play into things, and review the REITs markets. Ultimately, in these volatile times investors are opting for defensive names like consumer staples, utilities, dividend paying stocks, and cash to ride out the market uncertainty.
Click here to visit Joel’s PreMarket Prep website to keep up to date on his market outlook.