White House Insiders "FREAKING" Out AND -3.4% GDP Collapse

Could the worst be over? We have a

little bit of color on White House

officials who are freaking out over

tariffs coming out tomorrow on

Liberation Day. But that freaking out is

actually giving us a little bit of

insight into what actually could happen

tomorrow, leaving the stock market to

maybe be a little bit happier on this.

We'll talk about that. But we'll also

talk about could the worst of these

recession worries be over now that the

first quarter is over. A lot of folks

obviously paying attention to the

Atlanta Fed real GDP numbers, which just

once again collapsed on April 1st. I

hope it's a joke, but I don't think it

is. The Atlanta Fed just updated their

model from

-2.8% to

-3.7% for first quarter GDP. Now if you

remove or adjust for gold imports the

shenanigans that that can do we for to

uh GDP models we actually find that we

have now an alternate model forecast

which adjusts for gold and it sits at

-1.4%. Which basically says that based

on the data we currently have through

the beginning of April for January,

February, March we're looking at a

negative 1.4 GDP read. Now, does that

mean with certainty we're going into a

recession? No. That's because first of

all, the April uh data that we just got

today is just the beginning of the data

that we're going to get. In fact, a lot

of the data we got this morning, like

the Jolts or construction spending data,

a lot of this information is old. Jolts

refers to February data. So, we don't

actually really even have March data

yet. And we won't have all of March data

really until closer to the end of May.

And we probably won't get real Q1 GDP

numbers until closer to June or July,

which means it's going to be quite a

while before we know if we had a

recession, at least set up in the first

quarter. Because remember, a recession

is typically two quarters of negative

GDP. But even when we had that in the

past, like in the first and second

quarter of

2022, well, the economists who decide

whether or not we're in a recession

looked and said, "Well, may have had two

quarters of negative GDP, but the

employment market was too strong, so

we're not going to say it was a

recession. We're going to change uh

revise how we define a recession." The

problem though is most economists who

study recessions look at this data and

say we weren't told we were leading into

a recession in 2007 either. In fact, we

had estimates at the end of 2007 that

growth was actually sitting somewhere

around half of a percent. The problem

was it was somewhere around 6 to 12

months later that we ended up getting

revisions so large that we pushed those

half percent positives into negatives.

And that's how in hindsight we ended up

in a recession. So even if some of these

numbers end up positive for Q1, we might

not know for six to 12 months. So this

is why looking at these data sets is

usually not the best tool for trying to

understand are we actually going into a

recession. And instead we like to look

at things like what's going on with the

labor market or what's going on in

credit spreads. And credit spreads is a

really interesting kind of complicated

place to look. The easy way to look at

this is recently there's been a tiny

little spike, but when you zoom out the

spike is pretty tiny. When you look at

credit spreads, think of this fancy

phrase as a way of saying insurance.

When insurance costs go up, either

insurance companies are more nervous

about the risk or more people are

demanding insurance, right? So, in other

words, people are asking for higher

prices on that insurance or more people

are demanding that insurance. Uh, and so

what we've seen is junk bond spreads at

least quote still remain at multi-deade

lows. Now Bloomberg argues that this is

odd and that this could actually be a

gray swan risk of recession. Now what

the hell is that? Well, like a black

swan is a reference to something we

didn't see coming. A gray swan was

something that we could look at every

single day on the chart and go, "Oh,

it's ticking up. It's ticking up." It's

basically something that we see coming,

but we're not paying attention to it or

we're not pricing in. Uh, and so

Bloomberg is making this argument that

credit spreads, if we were to be going

into a recession, should be a lot wider.

In other words, those insurance costs

should be a lot wider. And the fact that

we're not making that movement yet could

create a shock. Now, a shock is

something that's really, really bad for

an economy. And it's usually a moment

like a Lehman Brothers or a Black

Monday. It's usually some moment when

somebody spilled a bunch of gasoline

where somebody throws the cigarette in

that gasoline. That is the poopy dupy

moment. The poopy dooy moments are the

moments where all of a sudden the spread

between the 2-year Treasury yield and

the 10-year yield spread apart. See,

that's a version of a spread as well,

just like these sort of junk bot

spreads. Uh, and when you get that sort

of spread above a spread of 50 to 90,

you're usually in a recession. Today,

we're just chilling out somewhere around

0.29. Like, who cares? We're not close

to that 50 level yet. Uh, and it's

similar here to what Bloomberg is

suggesting that, hey, you know, Gray

Swan risks uh include the following.

Take a look at this. included a crash in

Nvidia shares, 10-year yields above 6%,

and a US growth shock. These are risks

pointed out by Numeura Holdings. In

other words, economic risks for everyone

would be the 10-year yield rising above

6%. Most people think it's actually

going to go down now due to a slowdown

in the economy, but this could be an

inflationary risk, like a

hyperinflationary risk. obviously some

form of growth slowdown in stocks which

we're already seeing uh but potentially

true not fully priced again the stock

market has priced in a little bit we

already seen Nvidia shares down

somewhere around 30 40% from peak but

they see even more of a potential crash

here maybe as sort of a leading

indicator for an AI bubble a lot of

people for that one by the way pay

attention to coreweave stock now because

coreweave is basically signed up or been

signed up by Nvidia as their sort of

little bailout facility uh Nvidia in

other words is going to spend up to $250

million propping that stock up every

time it drops under $40 and then they

stop. So, it's really interesting

because when you look at the price

action for the stock, go on sort of the

hour basis here. Yesterday, we fell all

the way down to 36 bucks and the volume

on the day was pretty low. You could see

the highest volume on an hour basis was

about 4 million to 2 million shares.

Beginning of the day, four, end of the

day, you were sitting around 2.4. Well,

beginning of the day today, we were

around 5.7 million shares. And then all

of a sudden out of nowhere, which is

very unusual in the middle of the day,

all of a sudden out of nowhere, 8

million shares trade and oh my gosh,

wow, look, the price goes up. A lot of

people think this is the Nvidia bailout

facility pushing it up to 40 bucks and

then traders are like, "Oh my gosh, this

one's going up." And then you pump it up

even higher, right? Uh so it's an

interesting bailout mechanism that's

happening in plain sight right now. And

it does make a lot of people wonder,

yeah, maybe we should be paying

attention to some of these risks. But

anyway, uh this this idea about tariffs

freaking out the White House is

something that's worth talking about as

well because of course, you know, there

are always people who are worried about

recession. This Q1 Atlanta Fed GDP data

is scary, but we don't have all of the

data yet. Uh and even if we had all the

data, it's always subject to change. Uh

so that instead makes people very

interested in this quote unquote

freaking out behind closed doors. You

can see that here uh in the Daily Mail.

They suggest that White House officials

are quietly freaking out uh about

Trump's upcoming liberation day. Behind

closed doors, top administration

officials are deeply concerned with many

quietly admitting they're unsure what

the president is actually going to do.

No one knows what the f is going on. You

all know I love reliable cell service

because I rely on it as a YouTuber, much

like I like reliable power tools. Now,

something that's amazing about our

sponsor today, Helium Mobile, is they

enable the use of the T-Mobile bands at

$0. That's right. They have a free

cellular plan. If you check out their

website in the link below, use my

referral link so they know that I sent

you. supports the channel as well. But

they'll get you a free plan that gets

you 3 gigabytes of data, 100 minutes of

calls, and 300 texts, all at no cost,

and you literally get rewarded for using

your phone. If you want the free

version, you get to use it as your

premium or primary cell service. That

is, you can make phone calls from it,

text it, use 5G internet totally for

free as your primary option. You can

upgrade to a cheaper paid plan if you'd

like. Only $15 or $30 for upgraded

plans. You could use that as your

primary phone number. Or if you're like

me, you could consider using it as your

secondary phone number. That's because a

lot of phones now enable the use of an

eim secondary number and then you could

switch between the two. So, for some

reason, let's say you're an AT&T

customer and you're looking for coverage

because you just have a dead spot with

AT&T, you could switch over to the other

data network and boom, you're back in

service. It's one of the neat things

about this sponsor is you could have

that backup for free, which is kind of

cool. On top of that, they've got

referral benefits, gift card benefits.

You could refer other people and get $5

towards some of the other options that

they provide you all through that Helium

link down below. But the way to get in

is use that link down below and make

sure you use that referral code Kevin

and that'll get you hooked up almost

quite literally except not with wires.

It's all digital these days and really

easy to get started with. So check him

out in the link down below. One White

House ally close to Trump's inner circle

told Politico, "The president has

signaled that more than $1 trillion in

trade could be affected. Keep in mind

the president's goal is to make it so

that those making under $150,000 a year

don't have to pay taxes because we're

able to raise somewhere around $600

billion in tariff revenue. Economists

report that the problem with this is

you're going to have to add a multiplier

effect and whatever you think it's going

to take to get to $600 billion in

revenue. You're going to have to add

some kind of multiple to that because

you're going to destroy demand. So it

might actually take 40% or so more

tariffs than you would otherwise think.

White House officials have spent the

past several weeks privately assuring

business leaders, financial executives,

and Republican lawmakers that a cleaner,

more stable trade policy is coming. This

would be great. This is something that a

lot of folks know is that and we were

talking about this in the courses uh

this morning that in in our course

member live stream as as well of those

the alpha reports that we do. A lot of

what you find is uh you know with worse

stock pricing right before a catalyst

event because usually the catalyst event

is one that gives you clarity and

clarity is something that can be traded

and is something that could be planned

around whereas a lack of clarity is is

much more complicated to trade or plan

around and then that leads to withheld

orders which leads to depressed Atlanta

Fed GDP potentially. Uh now you know

quick mention if you haven't heard of it

yet we have a meet Kevin membership you

get every trade alert every stream

private live stream every alpha report

access to all the courses in uh one

small daily cost. It's pretty

inexpensive right now and that's because

we're about to raise the prices. We

expect to raise the prices uh by April

15th. So the middle of the month right

around tax day there. Uh so check that

out. You can uh pay monthly, quarterly

or annual. Give it a try annually. Give

it a try. Meet Kevin membership over at

meetke.com. If you don't like it, you

can cancel, but otherwise, we'll be

raising prices on April 15th. Uh, and if

you lock in your prices now, you'll lock

in those prices forever. But otherwise,

a big price increase coming April 15th.

So, going back to this piece right here,

we see that White House officials have

spent the past several weeks privately

assuring business leaders, financial

executives, and Republican lawmakers

that a clearer, more stable trade agenda

is coming. The problem with that is

folks like uh uh right, you know, you've

got JD Vance, Susie Wilds, and uh

Treasury Secretary Bessett suggesting,

hey, we need a more targeted tariff plan

or at least some kind of structured roll

out so businesses could plan. But Donald

Trump has actually been fluctuating

between should we just have sectoral

tariffs, which would be, you know, all

pharmaceuticals or all chips, or blanket

tariffs, such as blanket tariffs on all

of the dirty 15. Here's the Wall Street

Journal's take on what the dirty 15

could be. China, EU, Mexico, Vietnam,

Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Canada,

India, Thailand, Switzerland, Malaysia,

Indonesia, Cambodia, South Africa. You

you'll notice that individual EU members

are not listed here. Just have sort of

the bulk of EU mentioned here. Uh then

uh and that's also where you'll see a

lot of the VAT taxes, the value added

taxes, which aren't really tariffs.

They're just sort of tariffs on goods.

Well, I shouldn't say tears, their

taxes. There's sales taxes on goods uh

in various different countries. Uh and

um this is normal. You go to Europe, you

see substantially higher sales taxes on

goods than the 6 to 8% were blessed with

over here. But anyway, uh we may find

sectoral tariffs on April 2nd. We may

not, said one official to political

granted a condition of anonymity due to

ongoing deliberations. In other words,

nobody really knows what's going to

happen. Now, we will find out tomorrow

at uh 400 p.m. at 400 p.m. Eastern time,

1:00 p.m. California time, Donald Trump

will be holding a uh White House presser

in the Rose Garden to announce

Liberation Day. Now, note this is the

minute the market closes. So, in other

words, we're going to go from closing

bell, and I'll live stream it. We're

going to go from closing bell to Danny T

liberating us. So, we'll see how it

goes. Anyway, earlier this week, he

quote blindsided staff with a sudden 25%

increase on auto imports, forcing the

White House to delay afternoon

programming and scrambled to formalize

the decision. So, in other words, people

feel like there's a little bit of sort

of fly by nightishness going on here

with Donald Trump where it's sort of

like, today I feel like we're going to

do this and you know what, now we're

going to do this. This is what's leading

a lot of folks to say that, you know, we

we could end up not actually getting a

lot of clarity tomorrow because you know

what? if Trump gives certain countries a

break or certain companies a break. He

said he would there wouldn't be a lot.

Then he said there would be more

exemptions and he might be kinder and

then he said he might not be that kind.

So in other words, we have absolutely no

idea what's going on, which I think is

the point for Trump. Sort of art of the

deal. Lutnik says this is going to be a

historic day for American workers. Uh

other insiders say he goes into the Oval

Office and tells the president whatever

he wants to hear. one Trump ally calling

Lutnik an effing nightmare who backs

Trump's instincts without considering

broader consequences. All right, so he's

got a Trump yesmen in Lutnik. Uh and

apparently there's this inner quote that

says if the economy tanks then fine, the

economy tanks because the president

truly believes it will rebound and

countries will give in. Others quietly

hope Trump's affection for the stock

market might steer him away from more

shock. Senators like John Kennedy and

Mitch McConnell are saying, "Basically,

all we can do right now is complain

because if we really screw this up, we

might only have two years as we get

hosed during the

midterms." Okay. Wow, that's a lot to

take in. So, I think the bottom line out

of all of this is set your calendar for

400 p.m. Eastern and 1:00 p.m.

California time tomorrow. I'll be

streaming it live. I'm excited to be

there to bring the the event. Uh well,

you know, I'll be here in in the studio.

I'll bring some sound. How about that?

We'll bring some soundboards by

tomorrow. Uh and uh yeah, we'll take it

from there. So, it's going to be very

exciting. Uh thank you so much for

subscribing and watching here. Let me

know what other news content you'd like

me to cover and I'll keep covering it

for you. Thanks so much. We'll see you

in the next one. Goodbye and good luck.

Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this. We'll we'll try a

little advertising and see how it goes.

Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Praath there, financial

analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always

great to get your take.