The US stock market continues to trend higher after overcoming a challenging period earlier this year. On April 7, 2025, the S&P 500 hit an all time low. Since then, it has gained more than 28% in value and repeatedly reached all time highs. On Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, US stocks dipped after President Trump hit every US trading partner with sweeping tariff hikes and the July jobs report showed signs of a labor market slowdown. President Trump refuted the July jobs report, stating that the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner manipulated prints for political purposes. Despite the August 1 dip and the July jobs report, on Monday, August 4, 2025, Wall Street stocks rallied as investors jumped on a market pullback, shrugging off economic worries and focusing on the rising odds of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. S&P 500 gained 1.5 per cent to 6,329.94, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.0 per cent to 21,053.58. The August 4th trading session effectively reversed the losses from August 1, 2025. It can be speculated that the volatility of the market can be linked to the uncertainty of the effects of the Trump trading tariffs on the economy. However, it appears as though investors are shrugging off those worries of economic uncertainty and focusing on the likelihood that the Fed will cut rates in September. Mr. Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers stated, “Traders and investors have made a lot of money by deciding that tariffs won’t matter.” According to Sosnick, the bias of most investors is “Let’s not think about tariffs as being a problem until they actually prove that they are.” Regardless of the reasoning, the market is up. Overall, year to date, the major stock market indexes are showing positive gains in 2025: the S&P 500 is up 7.86%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 4.2%, and NasDaq is up 9.19%. The rollercoaster ride of the market may continue. But so far, under Trump’s economic policies, it appears as though the market is fairing well. Tickers to consider: JTAI , VNRX , FBRX , POAI , Sylva Disclaimer: https://www.sylvacap.com/disclaimer

The US job market continues to chug along despite heightened uncertainty about the economy and how President Donald Trump’s tariffs could shake out.According to the June jobs report, Job growth was solid at 147,000 and the unemployment rate was at 4.1%, down from 4.2%.  Despite the continuation of fairly solid monthly employment gains, the jobs report showed several potentially concerning signs. N early half of the jobs added were from the government sector. Private industry showed only the smallest gains in the last eight months . Additionally, the reduction in the unemployment rate was in part due to the fact that some people left the labor force, whether to retire, or voluntarily quit their jobs. Finally, the average work week for all private non-farm payrolls fell to 34.2 hours in June, down from 34.3 hours in May. This suggests that employers are reducing the hours of their employees. If this is the case, it is likely to see weaker job growth in the months ahead. Perhaps the biggest negative in this report is a slowing in the pace of wage growth. The annualized rate of growth comparing the last three months (April-June) with the prior three (January-March) is just 3.2 percent, down from 3.7 percent year-over-year. According to Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College, "The private sector was clearly losing momentum in the latter part of the second quarter, which does not augur well for the performance of the economy in the third quarter.” Are these potentially concerning issues a real threat to the economy, or is it a necessary “hiccup” required to correct the problems caused by Biden-economics and the inflation that has ravaged the country since 2020? The policies that were implemented during the Covid Pandemic, in which the government paid people to stay home and not work has crippled this economy. Five years later, employers are struggling to find skilled workers who will work for a reasonable wage. In fact, they are struggling to find people who will just show up to work. This has created extreme wage hikes just to get people to show up to work, which is costly to the employer causing him to limit the number of hours his employees can work. For example, pre-Covid, unskilled construction laborers made an average wage of $10-$12 hour depending on their level of skill. Today, that same unskilled worker will not show up to work for less than $25/ hour. This creates an extreme burden on the employer, who now can either only hire one worker instead of two, or has to raise his rates to his customer in order to meet the demand of payroll. Another problem is the inflated interest rates that occurred during the past 5 years. This has caused increases to mortgage payments for those who are purchasing homes. This in turn increases the rent that a landlord has to charge in order to make his rental property pencil out. In Bend, Oregon, an average monthly rent payment for a 3 bedroom/ 2 bath 1500 sq. ft. home pre-Pandemic was between $1200-$1500/ month. Today, that same home would rent for $3000/ month. We all know that the cost of food and groceries have gone through the roof in recent years. The high cost of living makes it almost impossible for workers to accept a “reasonable” wage. They simply cannot live on less than $25/ hour due to the high cost of living. A correction needs to occur in order to get things under control. Wages, rents, mortgages and food needs to become more affordable and reasonable. How this will occur has still yet to be answered. Maybe reducing the work week hours, and reducing wage growth is a start. But the government needs to do their part by not making it so easy for people to not go to work. There are a lot of people who choose to not go to work, because they make more off of their unemployment check than they would going to work. That has to stop! That will just promote laziness and lead to higher unemployment. Both are detrimental to the economy and the country as a whole. Tickers to consider: JTAI , VNRX , ZVSA , FBRX , POAI , PPCB Sylva Disclaimer: https://www.sylvacap.com/disclaimer

Layoffs in 2025 are reshaping the workforce. Government, tech, retail, accounting, manufacturing, and logistics have been dealing with the biggest cuts. Driven by tariffs, cost-cutting, AI adoption, and federal downsizing, these layoffs show a shift in the economy. Government-related layoffs remain the biggest single source of reductions, with more than 284,000 job cuts attributed to direct or indirect impacts of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Retail industry announced 11,483 job cuts in May, bringing their total year to date job layoffs to more than 75,000, up 274% from 2024. Tech Layoffs also surged. According to data by Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CG & C), an outplacement firm, the tech industry holds the bronze medal for most layoffs in 2025. Total layoffs for 2025 hover right at 75,000, representing a 35 year over year surge. Why is this happening? What are the reasons behind the mass layoffs of 2025? Per CG & C, nearly half of all layoffs so far in 2025 have been driven by cuts related to the DOGE’s efforts to reduce government waste, and restore fiscal discipline to the federal government. Another big contributing factor in the layoffs across the sectors is Artificial Intelligence. Tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) have made several support and low-code tasks redundant. Those who haven’t upskilled to work with AI are the most vulnerable to losing their jobs. This segues into another contributing factor…. employees working in outdated technologies. Many of these employees are being replaced by fewer, highly skilled professionals in AI, Cyber security, and Data Engineering. Today, layoffs are not about performance, but about irrelevance. Finally, thanks to remote work, companies can now hire skilled talent from anywhere. While this is a plus for employers, it also comes with negative consequences such as more pressure for local salaries, more competition for every job, and outsourcing jobs to cheaper regions. How can individuals position themselves to be layoff-proof? Most people would agree that reducing government wasteful spending and restoring fiscal discipline to the federal government is a good thing; therefore those layoffs will probably continue until that gets under control. However, while those government employees may not currently be layoff-proof, they can reinvent themselves to become layoff-proof if they are willing to put in the work. Here are a few tips: Learn future ready skills such as AI, Data, Cloud, etc. Be agile and ready to adapt to cross-functional roles. Upgrade your tech stack regularly through certifications, real world projects, and online courses. Layoffs in 2025 are not just about cutting costs. They are also about realigning talent with the future of work. Tariffs and trade wars are sometimes scapegoats for companies. They may use these trends to conduct firings, pivoting to AI-driven models. If a person is working in outdated technologies, or not adapting to the new AI driven world, then their risks are real. However, opportunities are just as real. Those who take initiative, invest in upskilling, and stay future focused will not only survive, but will thrive. Tickers to consider: JTAI , VNRX , ZVSA , FBRX , POAI , PPCB Sylva Disclaimer: https://www.sylvacap.com/disclaimer

The price of gold has increased rapidly in the months since Trump took office, surging particularly since his April 2 announcement of a baseline 10 percent tariff on all US imports. Gold has often been regarded as a safe-haven asset during times of economic uncertainty. When the economy is shaky, investors put more of their money into gold to preserve their wealth and protect their portfolios. Gold typically has an inverse relationship with interest rates. When interest rates go up, the value of gold often goes down. The reason for this is that higher interest rates make other investments, such as stocks and bonds, more attractive to investors, thereby decreasing the demand for gold and subsequently its price. Should this trend continue, lower interest rates could affect the economy in several ways. Lower interest rates make it cheaper to borrow money. This tends to encourage spending and investments. Lower interest rates will reduce the monthly costs of mortgage repayments. This will leave households with more disposable income and potentially cause a rise in consumer spending. Lower interest rates make it more attractive to buy assets, such as houses, land, vehicles and businesses. This will cause a rise in prices and therefore a rise in wealth. Gold maintains its intrinsic value better than any other commodity. It remains our best barometer of monetary trouble. A sustained rise in gold prices typically signals inflation; a price decline indicates deflation—a shortage of dollars. According to Forbes, The Federal Reserve fundamentally misunderstands inflation. Monetary inflation results from reducing a currency's value, by creating too much of it. Non-monetary inflation occurs when prices rise due to production disruptions: natural disasters, wars, pandemic lockdowns that severed supply chains, costly regulations, or certain tax increases. Gold has climbed over 60% since mid-2023, during the very period when the Fed claimed to be fighting inflation through interest rate hikes. The Fed's flawed thinking lies in its belief that prosperity causes inflation. Per the Fed’s reasoning, in order to lessen inflation, then the economy needs to be slowed. This approach fails to account for non-monetary price changes or the consequences of a weakening dollar. Stabilizing the dollar appears to be a better approach to fight inflation. The Federal Reserve should focus on returning to a “gold-backed” standard for the dollar. By focusing on dollar stability rather than manipulating interest rates, the Fed could end inflation without causing economic contraction. This addresses the monetary cause directly rather than attempting to slow growth—a strategy that inevitably causes unnecessary economic pain. The warning from the gold market cannot be ignored much longer. The question is whether the Fed will heed it before it's too late. Tickers to consider: JTAI , VNRX , ZVSA , FBRX Sylva Disclaimer: https://www.sylvacap.com/disclaimer

On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, President Donal Trump announced new tariffs on nearly all U.S. Trading partners, including 34% tax on imports from China, and 20% tax on the European Union. Responding to what he considered an economic emergency, elevated tariff rates will be placed on several countries that run trade surpluses in the United States and a 10% baseline tax will be imposed on imports from all countries. The purpose behind these tariffs is to boost domestic manufacturing here in the United States, and at the same time bring in hundreds of billions in new revenue to the U.S. government and restore fairness to global trade. Although the President campaigned on this policy, these so-called reciprocal tariffs were much more aggressive than anyone on Wall Street anticipated. The announcement triggered a plunge in the Stock Market. On Friday, April 4, 2025, the S&P 500 closed down 5.97% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 5.5%, both the biggest single-day declines since June 2020 during the COVID pandemic and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.8%. Some Trump officials acknowledge that there will be some short- term pain. How much pain before the gain has yet to be determined. According to Trump, these tariffs will force other countries to lower their import fees on U.S. goods and services. That will create a more balanced economic playing field for U.S. exports and a strong incentive for companies to manufacture goods in the United States. In retaliation, China announced on Friday, April 4, 2025, that they will be imposing a blanket 34% tariff on all American products. These tariffs are set to go into effect on April 10, 2025, the day after the Trump tariffs go into effect.  In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution introduced a national income tax. Prior to this, tariffs supplied as much as 90% of the federal government’s revenue in the mid-1800s. The U.S. moved from tariffs to income taxes to raise more money to finance an expanding government, collect more revenue from the wealthy and make the economy more efficient by reducing trade barriers and encouraging competition. In 2024, tariffs accounted for less than 2% of Federal revenue, 51 % came from income taxes and 36% came from Social Security and Medicare Taxes. Trump would like to replace income tax revenues with tariffs, allowing Americans to keep more of their hard earned money. Goldman Sachs Chief U.S. Equity Strategist, estimates that every 5 percentage point increase in the U.S. tariff rate will cut S&P 500 earnings per share by 1%-2%. This year's estimated 22.5 percentage point increase implies a potential 4.5%-9% cut in S&P 500 earnings from Trump tariffs. Despite a boost to inflation as firms pass through some portion of tariffs to customers, the economic hit will likely prompt the Fed to resume rate cuts. That would proceed tax cuts, which could give the economy a shot in the arm to start 2026. Tickers to consider: JTAI , VNRX , ZVSA , FBRX Sylva Disclaimer: https://www.sylvacap.com/disclaimer