Ed Ludlow

So let's start with tariffs because that's the key headline everyone faces today.

How do you think companies navigate this?

Does it change your investment thesis at all?

Yeah, I think you guys covered it well.

Overall slight reduction in the effective tariff rate over the next five months as that 130 or 122 investigation period goes for the next five months.

But after that significant uncertainty, the midterm elections will have an impact.

And yeah, will it delay investment decisions?

I think it'll make people think twice.

I think it'll probably make decision processes slow down a little bit.

And then on the other hand, business leaders, investors have been getting used to President Trump and his tactics and preferences and negotiating style over the last, you know, geez, more than 12 months now here in his second term.

And so I think perhaps a bit of normalcy set in.

I guess I'm not giving you a very good answer, but I think that there are kind of push and pull in both directions.

So they are confronted by ongoing uncertainty in a geopolitical environment.

But Jed, the eye of the storm has been on software names and the uncertainty that AI injects there.

Are you seeing any sort of ability to buy the dip yet?

I think that this private equity and also strategic investor interest in PayPal is instructive and probably going to happen quite a bit over the next 12 months.

The payment space of which PayPal is a member has been hit really, really hard over the last one year and even further back, if you look.

And so, yeah, I think you'll see strategic investors, private equity backed investors start to sniff around areas like payments, areas like software.

And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if you see a pickup in M&A in those areas as investors seek value and try to kind of pick through the rubble in an area that's been fairly well bombed out in the last six months.

Jed, I appreciate you reacting to that breaking story.