How did no one see this coming?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. During his campaign, Trump was very vocal about protectionism, tariffs, and an “America First” approach. None of it was subtle he made it clear he was going to shake things up with aggressive trade policies and a highly unpredictable style. Yet somehow, post-election, nearly every investment bank, a large chunk of investors, and a good number of people on this site seemed to think he’d be amazing for the markets particularly for the stock market and M&A largely based on the promise of deregulation. Obviously after the tariff announcements, everyone was shocked & surprised. I mean, just using logic his immigration policy + tariffs was never going to be bullish for markets. I remember trying to convince my PM that we should start rotating out of certain positions and move into higher quality names right after Trump won. He thought I was overreacting, and now our fund is in the red.
I’m not trying to say “I told you so,” I’m genuinely curious Why did so many market participants ignore the clearly obvious risks he posed and focus only on the bull case genuinely from what angle was this ever going to be smooth sailing?
We thought we were getting a good amount of rain amid long-lasting drought not fucking flood.
And your inability to read the tea leaves is depressing for the rest of us
And your inability to read the tea leaves is depressing for the rest of us
intense copeium lol
it's baffling to me that half of america treats politicians like another reality show. everytime some democrat calls out some messed up idea from trump, half the republicans defend him by saying he's not serious. why is he not serious? he's supposed to run a country, not a circus show. he can't just joke around. this shit wont fly in any other country. this is what happens when you deprioritize education and critical thinking (and somehow, being educated is woke).
his administration is also not the same as before. at least the 2016 one had decent people. now it's just yesmen who spread fox news propaganda and have no balls to stand up to him or convince him. even musk cant influence him much now (for better or worse). doesn't help more and more news media is owned by people like murdoch and bezos who keep spreading misinformation and normalizing this shitshow.
Whatever credibility you may have had with your post went out the door when you said "misinformation." We don't say that anymore.
LOL this is how all the MAGA retards respond when they lose. Trump has put them in such a bad position that there is no more rope for them to perform their mental gymnastics, so instead of admitting that they voted for the wrong guy, they "debate" by correcting grammar hahahaha
The unfortunate reality is that A LOT of people voted for Trump because they think he's funny.
He loves to banter, he loves to "own the libs", says the most outlandish things, only to say "no I'm just kidding" 2 seconds later.
It didn't happen overnight. It's been a gradual thing that has taken over 10 years...people that couldn't stand him, or had no opinion on him back then, are now enamored with him.
Trump is merely the symptom of the disease. As the now 40 year old book is titled, we're amusing ourselves to death.
I've been in cash for 2 years now (since the SP500 was at 4200). Markets were already overvalued and Buffett went into cash a while back. Markets were down to go at some point, but I didn't think that this would be the catalyst.
I expect things to get worse from here. Earnings dropping combined the current multiples that companies are trading at are going to make the fall even worse.
Buffet is still +50% invested, he is not all cash. Even after slashing his apple stake, apple is still his largest holding.
I view my business as my equity allocation. 65% of my net worth is in my business. I'll probably reallocate 50/50 equity and treasuries with the cash when marktes go a bit lower than where they are now.
Your cash will soon turn out even more worthless than the Venezuelan coin with the dollar now plummeting haahaaa
The market was overvalued for some time. We dumped a ton of stimulus into the system which gave us Bumble, Bird Scooters and SPAC shitcos. Or Solana meme coins. None of this was sustainable. If the catalyst that broke the camels back wasn't tariffs then it would have been DeepSeek or something else.
Dems trying to make this into a thing but this will be long forgotten by 2028. Just like how Biden/Kamala almost won despite Afghanistan and COVID mandates. People have no memory.
Anyways. The intent for tariffs was to try to help out US manufacturing. The intent wasn't to help Larry Fink buy a new yacht.
Wonder what your response will be if you become jobless for 6+ months, though I guess it won't matter much if you come from money.
Kamala nearly won because Trump is extremely divisive. If Nikki Haley had ran republicans would have had a clearer race and probably done better on the down ballot.
Also all the spac stuff and meme coins already took hits in 2022.
MAGA supporters are truly retarded and delusional. So what you're essentially saying is that "tariffs are justified because something was going to torpedo the economy and stock market. And so because something was eventually going to torpedo the economy, then we might as well implement tariffs and torpedo the economy now."
Let me try your logic...you're going to die one day. It's just life. Every one will die. It's inevitable. Based on your logic, how should you proceed today?
Which is peak idiocy because free trade was not the cause of the decline in manufacturing, tariffs are not going to bring it back. The share of US employment in manufacturing has been in decline since the post WW2 boom, it started before the energy crisis of the late 70's and well before NAFTA was even a twinkle in Bush Sr.'s eye. FRED only has data going back to 1970 but there are other datasets out there that go back to the 30's.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEFANA
The key innovation driving down manufacturing jobs is not free trade, it's automation. Blame the robots, they're the real job killers.
del
With this level of critical thinking, no wonder you’re stuck in banking
idc what you say the solana memecoins are good
Mostly because in his first term he didn't really do much on tariffs. Some moderate ones on China and that's mostly it. It should have been clear the first month that this was wayyyy different than the first term. First term was still mostly dominated by the Old Guard GOP and he had a limited cadre of loyalists who often got boxed out. So you kinda just got Mitt Romney with more memes. In the ensuing 8 years he won complete and absolute control over the party and built up enough loyalists to appoint diehards AND push them through a compliant senate.
This is more like the 2016 rhetoric translated into direct action, and at a blistering pace.
I find this very accurate.
the fact that some of you all think the US is going to become a manufacturing hub as of result of this stupid shit is hilarious
Watching all these businessmen panicking in the media after actively campaigning for him is just *chef’s kiss*
Trump made tariffs a central piece of his campaign but they wrongly assumed he was full of shit or could be managed - a stupid assumption for a narcissist who doesn’t have to worry about a reelection.
You all can sit here and talk about how the markets were overvalued but for this to be the catalyst is peak stupidity.
Jaime Dimon saying people needed to get over tarrifs and now crying about it is hysterical.
Ditto for people like Portnoy.
All it takes is common sense to realize the manufacturing is not coming back to the US in any meaningful way. US companies are not going to want to pay US wages. Also, there is far too much uncertainty with the tariffs to shift manufacturing to the US. No one knows what the tariff situation will next week or next month or next year. Company spending and hiring is likely going to decline substantially
Yup.
Companies aren’t going to pay US wages and consumers don’t want to pay for more expensive goods as a result.
They’ll will just wait out this administration. Even with the tariffs it’s cheaper to still make things abroad. The ultimate loser is the consumer who will have to absorb some of the increase.
We have guys here saying no one will remember this in 2028 - completely missing the big picture that midterms are next year.
In one respect, I can somewhat understand people being duped by Trump INITIALLY.
You, similar to the Bill Ackmans of the world, assumed this would be “the most pro-growth, pro-business Administration ever.” You gloated about the equity and crypto markets rally after his election.
Now the new narrative and pivot is that asset market performance “doesn’t matter” and “it was overvalued” anyway.
The way some of you all double down on supporting his stupidity is just hysterical. And our supposed business leaders are clearly spineless. Even now, they don’t have the guts to call out Trump. Rather, they’re blaming his advisors for giving him bad advice as if 1) he’s either too stupid to understand the ramifications and / or 2) he needs to be publicly absolved of any blame to discourage his petulant tendencies
Think about agriculture for a second also. Most farmers got away with paying migrants literally $7.25 an hour or less to pick fruits and vegetables. No farmer is going to pay regular US citizens $25 an hour to pick crops especially in the south where you had migrants who were just happy to be in America and worked for pretty much nothing. So it'll be less profits for farmers and less crops. Manufacturing companies literally went to other countries because the cost and labor to manufacture the product was too appealing! Just think about it, I could manufacture a phone for example in Thailand and it cost $50 to create and I can bring it back to America and sell it for whatever I want and make a profit regardless. I think a lot of businesses are committing capital to build a plant in America just to shut Trump the hell up for now even though its not going to happen because it would take YEARS to bring companies back and all Trump is going to do is announce it to the media to make it seem like a huge win lol. Businesses don't run on Patriotism.
No, we are Somalia now
Arrrrgh matey
You assume the people who voted for him give a shit about market participants.
Also the most important thing in this environment right now is the 10 year. That is ALL that matters.
PEarbitrage strikes again with his mental retardation! His retardation is so severe that it won't let stop revealing to everyone else that he is retarded LOL.
Most people who voted for him 1.) Didn't know what a tariff is until about a month ago 2.) Most of them are blaming this on Biden and Kamala (LOL) 3.) They don't understand that they are market participants whether they like it or not. Have a job? Well you're a market participant because the company that you work for relies on the markets to provide you that job. But because MAGA voters are retarded, they need to touch the stove to know it's hot. They are now learning what a tariff is. When they get laid off and can't afford basic goods anymore, they will then learn the consequences of tariffs.
You are one of these retard MAGA voters. You're hand is still on the stove. It's not quite hot enough, but at the rate we're going, you'll feel it pretty soon. Me on the other hand, I can tell it's hot by seeing the "on" button and the fire underneath. But you do you retard.
Your response to anything I say is legit a copy paste.
Rah rah rah retard rah rah rah. You responded to nothing about what I said. The topic of conversation is about the lack of foresight of those who you think are not retarded to not see that the man who has spoken about tariffs for 50 years wouldn't do tariffs. That to me says you and your ilk are actually the retards here.
I was merely commenting on the fact that if you think that people who voted for Trump either 1) don't want this now or 2) give a fuck about what happens to the stock market, then you are sorely mistaken and uninformed. The vast majority of the people who voted for Trump were looking for something exactly like this. They are looking for someone who cares more about them than wallstreet. Like it or not, that is what they want.
I think this is a pretty simplistic viewpoint rooted in some baseline assumption that Trump's voters are fly-over state nobody's out in the boonies that have never heard of stocks or ETFs. Sources vary but a quick search shows something like 55% to 62% of voting age Americans own at least some stock.
Trump got somewhere north of 77M popular votes. That's pretty high and I think the first time in 20+ years GOP has won popular vote. He did better across most voter segments and fucking crushed it among young adults.
1 in 2 people voted for him. They're people like my radiologist uncle, my retired grandfather, my new to the workforce 22-24 year old cousins, my own close friends with whom I've shared my financial goals, plans, and aspirations and heard them reciprocate. These are people in our every day lives with whom we hold way more in common than not.
I'm not sure how one would dispute the above or otherwise claim that 55-62% of Americans hold stock but also do not care about market performance and / or are not market participants.
Owning stock and caring about volitility in the markets are two entirely different things.
I should have been more clear, by market participants I meant people who directly derive their livelihoods through public market participation. Not merely people who own stock either directly or indirectly.
I literally saw this. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. This is why on Monday before the tax increase day I moved my entire 401k to cash
Tons of people saw this coming lol, it isn’t a surprise. Trump said he would do this and Kamala literally stood on stage saying he would as well. People similar to individuals on this site just pretending like this notion was crazy and ignored all of this as long as Trump complained about DEI and pretended Trump would do only what they wanted. Meanwhile he has filled the administration with some woefully unqualified people after acting like “merit” is critical lol. This is an important lesson for many, don’t vote idiots to be presidents. It isn’t that difficult.
I supported Trump because I bought into his "agenda" of growth, deregulation, etc and thought he was going to be ultra bullish markets.
I got conned like a lot of people but at least admit to it - many people won't
The best thing America has going for it right now is the fact that Trump is a fucking elite level scammer, so maybe he can scam the Chinese as well.
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