It’s really hard to predict what might happen with rates, the stock market, the economy etc. A few weeks ago rates were trending down and the market expected the Fed to cut rates. Fast forward to today and with the tariff announcements expectations obviously changed. I think a lot of this depends on how far Trump is willing to go as far as decoupling from China. If he’s serious, then it probably does mean there will be some real economic pain. Higher supply chain costs —> higher prices —>inflation. That usually means higher interest rates. China could also dump a lot of their treasuries and drive yields higher.
The other scenario is Trump has already backed off on most of the tariffs for everyone except China. He has even come out with statements like he and Xi have a great relationship and there is a good chance of a deal with China. To me that indicates he isn’t serious about truly decoupling and enduring the pain we’d need to in order to pivot away from China.
I really don’t know where all this goes, but my guess is he probably has to walk a lot of this stuff back while some how trying to declare victory without much meaningful change. We probably get some more volatility in the markets. I wish I had bought when the S&P 500 was down 20% from its high. History has shown that works out really well. Maybe we get back down there and maybe this thing really spirals and it goes even lower.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s to just buy when the price craters, don’t try and analyze too much, because it’s too complex to really figure out. Markets are simply a bunch of human emotions pushing against each other.
I didn’t buy at the lows because I made that mistake to “analyze”, if it gets down there again I plan to just hold my nose and pull the trigger.
Hope that helps, but probably tells you nothing you didn’t know already!