Yardeni QuickTakes (Page 33)

Unsettling Economic Policy Conditions Starting To Unsettle The Economy

Apr 1, 2025 3 min read

Today's batch of economic indicators shows a few signs that Trump Turmoil 2.0 started to weigh on the economy during March. That’s the message from the month's national ISM manufacturing purchasing managers survey. February's construction spending report shows that this sector is losing its upward momentum, for now. On the other hand, February's JOLTS release shows that the labor market

Ed Yardeni

Our New S&P 500 Earnings & Price Targets Under Trump's Reign Of Tariffs

Mar 31, 2025 4 min read

Yesterday, we reduced the odds of our Roaring 2020s base-case scenario from 65% to 55% and raised the odds of a stagflationary scenario from 35% to 45%. The latter includes the possibility of a shallow recession later this year, following a buy-in-advance shopping spree during April and May. We did so because Trump's Reign of Tariffs imposed a 25% permanent tariff on imported autos and auto parts last

Ed Yardeni

Trump’s Reign Of Tariffs: Stagflation Odds Up, S&P 500 Target Down

Mar 30, 2025 11 min read

YRI Bulletin Board. Our colleague Eric Wallerstein is taking a leave of absence. He has accepted a position on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. We wish him all the best. The following is a reprint of our Morning Briefing which we sent to our institutional investors today. We wanted to share it with our QuickTakes community of individual investors and business professionals. Your comments are always welcome. Reign

Ed Yardeni

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

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

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

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

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

ECONOMIC WEEK: March 24-28