Trade worries continue to escalate stoking uncertainty in the process and raising investor concerns. This has led the major market indices to leak year to date gains, but we have yet to see the trade and tariff impact be factored into earnings and growth expectations for the second half of 2019. As that happens in the coming weeks, the market waters are likely to remain choppy at best. We’ll continue to heed the thematic signals that have guide our thematic investing lens that has allowed the bulk of the thematic leaders to shine so far in 2019. Given the market’s prospects that can whipsaw option trades, as we saw last week, we’ll sit on the sidelines rather than risk capital.

With trade and economic uncertainty remaining in focus for the stock market, we are addding a defensive thematic position in AT&T shares to the Select List given the sticky mobile busines, 6.3% dividend yield and the pending valuation transformation to be had with WarnerMedia. Retailers continue to be in headwind hotwater with two of our investing themes, and Gap specific decision puts its dividend at risk. That has us adding a Gap put position at Tematica Options+ this week.

As expected, US-China trade has once again taken center stage, and with prospects likey stalled in the short-term, it means the market is once again sitting on trade pins and needles. Meanwhile fresh data show the economy is slowing considerably compared to the March quarter, and odds are investors will start to question June quarter EPS expectations and the market’s current valuation. With President Trump dropping the hammer on Chinese telecom company Hauwei, we discuss the impact to the Thematic Leaders and Select List residents. At Tematica Options+ new rumblings are causing us to add a call option position in a former Thematic Leader.

This week we go from the frying pan into the earnings season fire with 30% of the S&P 500 companies report their quarterly results. This will offer a number of thematic data points, as we illustrate with the results from Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, Twitter and Verizon. We also chew on the conflicting signals between the Retail Sales and Housing data for March. The answer to that leads us to add a call option position in Home Depot shares at Tematica Options+.

Ahead of the Easter holiday week, we have a jam packed issue as we review some of the latest economic data and breakdown the IMF’s recent downward revision for its 2019 GDP forecast. And yes, earning season is almost upon us. Before that, we have Disney’s annual Investor Day at which it will formally debut its streaming service Disney+. We also visit with Middle Class Squeeze Thematic Leader Costco Wholesale (COST) following blow out March quarter same-store sales. And eMarketer gives us reasons to be positive on Alphabet/Google as well as Thematic King Amazon. At Options+, we will continue to hold our short position in Veeco Instruments as well as our inverse call option position as earnings season gets underway.

We continue to recevie more signs of a slowing global economy that along with other factors looks to be setting up a rocky March quarter earnings season. We continue to think investors should have some downside protection in their holdings for at least the next several weeks. We saw a nice pop in our SH calls last week, but given what’s likely ahead we’ll not only continue to hold them, we’re adding another inverse ETF call option position today as well.