E.J. Antoni

And you're going to see a ratcheting down of not just the rhetoric, but the reality around tariffs.

Well, we're still seeing a lot of carve-outs, frankly, which is going to also help blunt the effect of these tariffs initially. I think, look, you're walking a tightrope here. On the one hand, if you really want to bring the pain to Beijing...

Well, we're still seeing a lot of carve-outs, frankly, which is going to also help blunt the effect of these tariffs initially. I think, look, you're walking a tightrope here. On the one hand, if you really want to bring the pain to Beijing...

then you don't have any exemptions you have even higher tariff rates we're talking 400 on anything and everything coming in from china you know that's a double-edged sword the flip side there to that coin is that you're also going to bring a lot of pain to the american consumer because not all of that not all of that tariff is going to be paid for by the chinese producer some of it is going to fall on american consumers not all but some of it will

then you don't have any exemptions you have even higher tariff rates we're talking 400 on anything and everything coming in from china you know that's a double-edged sword the flip side there to that coin is that you're also going to bring a lot of pain to the american consumer because not all of that not all of that tariff is going to be paid for by the chinese producer some of it is going to fall on american consumers not all but some of it will

And so since we're already in a cost of living crisis, courtesy of what the Biden administration left us, we want to minimize the pain on the American consumer while maximizing the pain on the Chinese Communist Party. And so, you know, right now we do have a very high tariff rate, well over 100 percent on Chinese goods.

And so since we're already in a cost of living crisis, courtesy of what the Biden administration left us, we want to minimize the pain on the American consumer while maximizing the pain on the Chinese Communist Party. And so, you know, right now we do have a very high tariff rate, well over 100 percent on Chinese goods.

But again, we have a lot of carve outs on it regarding semiconductors, regarding different electronic components. So it remains to be seen what that's going to look like in the coming days.

But again, we have a lot of carve outs on it regarding semiconductors, regarding different electronic components. So it remains to be seen what that's going to look like in the coming days.

Well, at the end of the day, markets really hate uncertainty, full stop. Even if you're going to get bad news, if it's at least certain, you can prepare, you can plan, whether on the consumer side or the firm side, it doesn't matter. So the real problem has been the uncertainty.

Well, at the end of the day, markets really hate uncertainty, full stop. Even if you're going to get bad news, if it's at least certain, you can prepare, you can plan, whether on the consumer side or the firm side, it doesn't matter. So the real problem has been the uncertainty.

Going back to what we started talking about with tariffs, where you have different members of the administration saying different things, that creates unneeded uncertainty. uncertainty. The way these tariffs were rolled out, quite frankly, created a lot of unneeded uncertainty. Instead of just having pain overseas, it was a lot of pain here at home in our financial markets.

Going back to what we started talking about with tariffs, where you have different members of the administration saying different things, that creates unneeded uncertainty. uncertainty. The way these tariffs were rolled out, quite frankly, created a lot of unneeded uncertainty. Instead of just having pain overseas, it was a lot of pain here at home in our financial markets.

And sure enough, as you see different pieces of that uncertainty resolved, the thousand point drop in the Dow is reversed and we get a thousand point swing to the upside. And scarily, those thousand point swings have become the norm on basically a daily basis for the Dow.

And sure enough, as you see different pieces of that uncertainty resolved, the thousand point drop in the Dow is reversed and we get a thousand point swing to the upside. And scarily, those thousand point swings have become the norm on basically a daily basis for the Dow.

But if you look at something like the whole conversation about whether Trump will remove Powell, this is, I think, a good illustration. The market doesn't really like Jerome Powell, but the idea of removing him creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty. And that's the last thing markets need right now on top of the uncertainty they already have.

But if you look at something like the whole conversation about whether Trump will remove Powell, this is, I think, a good illustration. The market doesn't really like Jerome Powell, but the idea of removing him creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty. And that's the last thing markets need right now on top of the uncertainty they already have.

Well, unfortunately, the Fed really has just been putting politics before policy. They talk about how they're data dependent. As far as I can tell, the only data they're really paying attention to is whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I mean, there was absolutely no empirical justification for the rate cuts that they instituted right before the election last year.

Well, unfortunately, the Fed really has just been putting politics before policy. They talk about how they're data dependent. As far as I can tell, the only data they're really paying attention to is whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I mean, there was absolutely no empirical justification for the rate cuts that they instituted right before the election last year.

That was a blatant move of election interference, in my opinion. And now, despite the data being even more favorable today for a rate cut, they're refusing to do it. It makes absolutely no sense. This is the same Jerome Powell who, for example, when he was up for renomination, set a 75 basis point hike, or in other words, a three-quarter percentage point increase in interest rates.