Sam Goldfarb
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
It's largely one word, which is tariffs and uncertainty about tariffs, which is changing day by day, hour by hour. It does seem that U.S. tariffs on a broad array of goods coming from a broad array of countries are going to be going up. And so that's one thing that investors are a little queasy about because the fear is that Those tariffs, the cost of those will be passed on to consumers.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
There's also just the uncertainty. It potentially unnerves businesses. They don't know what's in the future, so it's harder for them to plan, harder for them to make investments.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
Then consumers might pull back spending a little bit. Either that or the businesses will have to accept smaller profit margins if they don't pass on those costs. So either way, it's not great for stocks. And then there's also just the uncertainty. It potentially unnerves businesses. They don't know what's in the future. So it's harder for them to plan, harder for them to make investments.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
In short, selling riskier assets like stocks and buying safer assets like gold and U.S. government bonds. That's kind of like the standard playbook for when they're concerned about at least a slowdown in economic growth, even if we don't have a recession. So yields on U.S. government bonds have fallen since January and the price of gold has gone up.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
So, you know, I guess it's step one. And because they could signal that the hard data, like the jobs report that we're going to get on Friday or the incoming months could turn worse. Sometimes the soft data doesn't translate to the hard data. People might be saying that they're not feeling great, but they actually just keep on spending. That's happened a little bit in recent years.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Tumble as Trump Delays Tariffs on Canada, Mexico
So we'll just have to see.