What Tariff Man Hath Wrought

Anywhere between 5% and 10%. That's how much US equities could sell off as a result of Donald Trump's tariff broadside. According to Wall Street. Obviously, any drawdown could be far larger or entirely negligible, depending on a whole host of factors, most of which are impossible to quantify ahead of time, let alone incorporate into any sort of modeling exercise. But you gotta cut Wall Street some slack on this. If you're a sell-side economist or strategist of any sort, you can't not try to g

Join institutional investors, analysts and strategists from the world's largest banks: Subscribe today

View subscription options

Already have an account? log in

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

3 thoughts on “What Tariff Man Hath Wrought

  1. Again, why are most analysts only focusing on the direct impact of tariff-driven price increases? Corporate America, even companies not directly importing goods, will quickly raise prices using tariffs as cover. Or are things different than in 2023?

    Meanwhile, some folks over at JP Morgan are questioning whether Trump is actually as “business-friendly” as they previously thought.

    1. Trump is not friendly to anyone. He has a goal of hurting someone every day. The few voters who put him in office voted for something completely different that the outcome they will be receiving. Look what he’s actually doing. He doesn’t care about Fentanyl, he cares about hurting his “enemies,” a long list in constant flux. He can’t sit still between Big Macs and fries. Every perceived slight sets him off on another path.

    2. Correct, tariffs create a new price floor for a given good or service. If the price for Modelo (the top selling imported beer in the US) goes up by 25% Anheuser-Busch raises the price on Budweiser 24%.

      These analysts also seem to be ignoring the downstream supply chain impacts to pricing. We import cheap aluminum from Canada, if that goes up 25% then every consumer/producer of an aluminum based good will tack on their percentage. We won’t be complaining about 7% inflation, we’ll be shocked by 40% inflation instead.

      Trump is making Wharton look like a pretty terrible business school.

NEWSROOM crewneck & prints