Joe Rennison

What do you mean by that?

You know, believe it or not, a majority of Americans are actually invested in the stock market, either through retirement plans or pension plans or the rise of retail investors, day trading that kind of picked up during the pandemic.

And then while the stock market might not be the economy, and maybe it doesn't feel like it has this kind of direct effect on most Americans' lives, the companies in the stock market are huge employers.

They employ thousands and thousands of people.

They are responsible for the paychecks of many, many Americans.

And if those companies start to do worse or start to come under pressure...

That tends to affect how they spend money in the economy, whether that's on labor or infrastructure projects or whatever it happens to be.

So there is this kind of relationship between markets and the economy, even if they don't always send exactly the same message.

And they're also forward looking.

So markets are constantly trying to understand where we go, not where we are now.

And so they're a really good barometer, in a sense, of where the many, many investors that are putting money to work every single day, buying and selling stocks, bonds, currencies, and other things, where do they see things headed?

And again, at the moment, from a very cursory look at the financial markets, one would think that people think we're on a reasonably safe path.

Absolutely.

So coming into this year, we're in a pretty good place.

There was some enthusiasm around Trump being elected, a sort of more pro-business president, at least perceived to be a more pro-business president, and a sort of unleashing of growth and opportunity in the US for big business.

And then the tariffs hit.

And whilst these were expected, they came through a lot more punitive, a

And so there was a sharp reaction.

And the reason that sharp reaction kind of hit almost more than the tariffs themselves, almost more than sort of what it said about the direction of travel for the administration, was that it was unexpected.

Yeah.