Archive

LIBERATION WEEK: March 31-April 4

Mar 30, 2025 3 min read paid

Trump's Reign of Tariffs will likely dominate the economic week ahead. The big event will occur on April 2 (dubbed "Liberation Day" by President Donald Trump). That's when the administration will impose reciprocal tariffs on a number of America's trading partners. However, it's very likely that tariff announcements will continue after that date, as bilateral negotiations are teased out and

Ed Yardeni

REPRINT: 'The Protectionist Road To Depression.' Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Mar 28, 2025 20 min read

💡This is a timely reprint of a September 9, 1985 Topical Study by Edward Yardeni titled "The Protectionist Road To Depression." The original with charts can be found here. It is very relevant to today's debate over the trade policies of the Trump administration, which is scheduled to announce reciprocal tariffs on most of America's major trading partners on April 2. Will they retaliate

Ed Yardeni

The AI Trade

Mar 28, 2025 3 min read

Two months ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "All I know is, I'm good for my $80 billion" regarding the $500 billion Stargate AI announcement. His comments followed the emergence of DeepSeek's R1 large language model and chatbot, which was supposedly trained at much lower cost than state-of-the-art models built in the US. A February note from

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Trump Slams On The Auto Tariff Brakes

Mar 27, 2025 2 min read

President Trump's Wednesday night announcement of a 25% tariff on imports of foreign motor vehicles caused a selloff in auto stocks today. Components such as engines and transmissions are also impacted, while previously trade-compliant parts from Canada and Mexico will be slapped with tariffs at a later date. At the moment, the 25% tariff is expected to be on top of those coming on April 2. That would

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 3/26/25

Mar 26, 2025 1 min read paid

The Fed’s Economic Forecast Versus The Consensus & Ours Investors clearly fear a recession is coming—that’s what the recent stock market correction suggests. The consensus of economists probably puts the prospect of a recession at 35% (as we now do). Fed officials likely expect to avert a recession by lowering interest rates; FOMC meeting participants dropped their GDP projections last week to 1.7% this year. As

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Losing Confidence

Mar 25, 2025 3 min read

Consumers are feeling okay about the present situation, but they are losing their confidence in the future. The obvious cause of their anxiety is Trump Turmoil 2.0. The Trump administration admits that its trade and DOGE policies might cause some economic pain in the short run but says they should lead to big gains in the long run ("The Golden Age of America"). The problem is that

Ed Yardeni

Helter-Skelter

Mar 24, 2025 3 min read

"Helter-skelter" is a term used to describe disorderly haste, confusion, or chaos. That seems to be descriptive of the modus operandi of President Donald Trump's trade policy. Then again, perhaps there is method to the madness. Perhaps it is Trump's approach to the art of the deal. So the chaos is a feature and not a bug of his style of dealmaking. The technique

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

MARKET CALL: 'There Will Be Flexibility'

Mar 23, 2025 3 min read paid

When President Donald Trump was asked on Friday about his tariff policies, he said: "I didn’t change my mind. I don’t change. But the word ‘flexibility’ is an important word. Sometimes there's flexibility. So there will be flexibility, but basically it's reciprocal." A WSJ article posted at 5:26 pm today is titled "White House Narrows April 2 Tariffs." It

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

ECONOMIC WEEK: March 24-28

Mar 23, 2025 3 min read paid

The predominant theme of the economic week ahead will be inflation, both realized and expected. Consumer inflation expectations will be updated for March, while February's PCED inflation rate also will be released (both Fri). Cooler-than-expected CPI and PPI prints last month aren't likely to translate to the PCED due to some hotter components that feed through to the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge. Regardless,

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

DEEP DIVE: The Valuation Problem

Mar 21, 2025 4 min read paid

This is an excerpt from Yardeni Research Morning Briefing dated Monday, March 17, 2025. Last Thursday, I visited with some of our accounts in Connecticut. They seemed remarkably relaxed that day as the S&P 500 fell into correction territory. Many of them are seasoned institutional investors and have been through lots of corrections and bear markets. Everyone attributed the selloff to Trump Tariff Turmoil 2.0. The bulls

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

US Economy Is Still Resilient, But Tariffs Pose Risks

Mar 20, 2025 3 min read

Today's batch of economic data releases was positive on balance but also suggests that Trump Tariff Turmoil 2.0 could dampen future growth. Stock prices seesawed between gains and losses, while Treasury yields slid a bit. Markets continue to suggest that economic growth outside of the US is increasingly likely to improve while downside risks to US growth are rising. As a result, US stock valuation multiples are

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Certainly Uncertain

Mar 19, 2025 3 min read paid

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell used the word "uncertainty" 16 times in his press conference today. We sympathize. At the outset, it's impossible to know what tariffs will be imposed by the US on April 2., on which countries, and for how long. When the specifics are revealed, it will still be difficult to forecast their impact on economic growth and inflation in the US and

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein