Joel Elconin – Trading The Volatility Within Select Market Sectors And Preparing For Bifurcated Reactions To Q1 Earnings Guidance
The KE Report w/ Cory Fleck and Shad Marquitz - 04-18-2025
Joel Elconin, co-host of the PreMarket Prep show and founder of the Stock Trader Network, joins us to recap this last week in the markets. We’ve seen a continuation in volatility across U.S. markets, so Joel breaks down the key drivers and technical thoughts on trading select sectors like tech, healthcare, airlines, hotels, and gold, and looks ahead to the coming bifurcation in reactions to Q1 earnings guidance.
🔑 Key Insights from Joel Elconin:
We start off looking at the whipsaw moves lately in general US equities, and Joel provides some technical levels that have his attention throughout the discussion.
🗣 Quote: “I think investors at a point, large and small, where they don’t know what to believe.”
📉 He highlights the recent price action moves in Apple Inc (AAPL) as an example of a company that is being pulled between company fundamentals, the impacts of tariffs and tariff exemptions to their international manufacturing model. Investors and the company is considering what it may look like if Apple tried to reshore its factories here in the US.
Joel points out that at present we don’t have certainty, we just have a 90-day pause in the implementation of the global tariffs.
“Where does that put Apple after the 90 days? … and I think investors are forward looking.”
“I mean, we all know if they have to start manufacturing those phones in the US states… First of all, how long is going to take to build the factories? Number 2 - who are they going to get to work at those factories and at a comparative pay? “
“Apple is not out of danger until either (a) the tariffs are permanently removed, or if (b) they can build up factories in 6 weeks and find people to work for $5 a hour. Those are not plausible scenarios.”
This brings up the larger topic of how difficult it is for many companies to forecast or make plans in this on-again / off-again tariff policy environment, where some components or sectors get tariff exemptions and others do not.
“Not only are tariffs going from country to country, which could take a long time to negotiate, but they’re from going sector to sector…. so, you don’t know.”
“This all leads us to one thing – and that is uncertainty. If there is one thing that the market doesn’t tolerate it is uncertainty.”
We then broadened the scope to review the trading action in many stocks a market sectors over the last week:
“I think Monday was just classic... You had the news on Saturday, but it wasn’t the same as Sunday when everyone went to press, but then Trump said from Airforce One on Monday that: ‘Yeah that it was the news.’ So, we had the higher open right? We had the good day, but couldn’t get through last week’s high. We kind of meandered on Tuesday, and then Powell stuck a fork in market on Wednesday.”
💡 “I think the overhead supply in the market, is much greater than the underneath demand, at these current levels.”
We then dig into price levels to watch in other select stocks in a number of sectors from tech stocks, financials, healthcare, airlines, and hotels.
We note discuss the very different reactions we are seeing to some companies news and guidance if it is better than expected or the crushing results if it disappoints.
Joel offers his thoughts on how traders may react to this coming earnings season with regards to pulling profits on rallies, scalping deals big moves down, or reducing market exposure around key newsflow.
“I think you’re going to see some jaw-dropping moves in both directions.”
👉 Joel points out that we’ve seen some strength in retail sales numbers in Q1 and that it may be consumers front-running tariffs going in place. “We may see some pull forward in demand from consumers that decide to purchase appliances or a new vehicle, because they are concerned these items may go up in price.”
Next we pivot over to Jerome Powell’s perceived bearish comments on the economy, inflation, jobs, and the macroeconomic data mid-week, and how those further roiled the markets. We discuss the current tug-of-war between the Feds’ monetary policy and the government’s fiscal policies, and what this all means for the health of the economy moving forward.
🌍 The discussion then turns to the momentum and strength seen in gold, which broke to all-time highs again mid-week in US dollar terms, but is up at new highs in every currency on the planet. We analyze why it continues to separate from most other asset classes as the refuge from the volatility, even more so than other traditional safe havens like bonds or the US dollar.
⚖️Wrapping up Joel weighs in on Google, which has been ruled to be monopolistic by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year.
➡️Click here to listen to the full interview to hear Joel’s technical outlook, macro insights, and get the pricing levels he is watching most closely in a number of specific stocks.
To follow Joel’s analysis check him out over at The Premarket Pre Show and Stock Trader Network, both linked below:
https://www.premarketprep.com/
https://www.stocktradernetwork.com/
🎧 Listen to the full interview here:
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