Natalie Kittroff

Thanks for being in the studio.

So we're coming to you because there has been this question on my mind for a while now, and I think it's been on a lot of people's minds.

And the question is, what is up with the markets?

Because it seems as though every few weeks or so something happens, whether it's a new Trump policy, whether it's weak jobs data, whether it's new tariffs.

And at least for the past few months or so, the market has not really had a huge or lasting reaction to those things.

Now, a week ago, we did see a decline when Trump threatened new China tariffs, but then the markets seemed to recover.

And at this point, they've been in all-time high territory for a while.

And the mystery for me has been, how can that be?

How can it be that all these theoretically destabilizing events are not seriously rattling investors?

So you're saying the signals the market sends matter.

Okay, well, let's get into the signals that we are getting from investors right now.

It feels like maybe one of the most helpful recent examples of that kind of barometer that you're talking about was during the initial market reaction to Trump's tariffs back in the spring.

The market, the stock market, and the bond market reaction in particular were initially negative.

Many people saw that as a strong signal to the administration.

The administration pulls back.

It's not surprising that the market recovered once Trump retreated from those initial really high tariffs.

But what was surprising to me was that the markets kept going up and up, even though Trump did eventually raise tariff rates.

It was more gradual, but those tariffs hit multiple sectors and multiple countries.

Can you just explain that, break that down for me?

Which is considerable, right?