In This Article:
US stock futures (ES=F, NQ=F, YM=F) sink as President Trump threatens a 50% tariff on the EU and warns Apple over iPhone production.
Joe Hegener, chief investment officer of Asterozoa Capital, joins Morning Brief to weigh in on how renewed trade tensions and policy uncertainty could be setting the stage for a broader earnings pullback.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
US stocks sinking this morning as President Trump threatens 50% tariffs on the European Union jolting stocks on what was shaping up to be a quiet trading day. The President also threatening Apple with tariffs reigniting investor fears over the trade war which last month sent stocks into a bear market. Joining us now Joe Hagener, AstroZwa Capital CIO. Joe, thank you so much for being here with us this morning. Is this a reality check for our market that had somewhat forgotten the fact that we had not had any trade negotiations or deals yet with any of these countries?
I I think that's absolutely right. Yeah, thanks for thanks for having me. I especially in the last few weeks just given all the crazy headlines that have come out and moved the market in such dramatic ways, you know, up, down, you know, left, right. I feel like there's been a lot of short-termism and you kind of embedded within market volatility. Uh, you know, the only thing we really got, you know, as a relief to you, you know, that that April 2nd uh independent you know tariff implementation was a 90-day pause. And and even then we knew that the best case scenario was a flat 10% tariff rate across all of the nations and and that was the best case scenario. Assuming that every single country comes to the table and negotiates in good faith which you know we're we're somewhat skeptical that that actually takes place given this administration is is fairly aggressive in their in their posturing.
Joe, with all that in mind, is President Trump still seen by the business community as a a pro business president?
Oof. On the one hand, I he's very pro business in the in the sense that he wants um lots of deregulation, he wants tax reform and tax cuts, uh he wants to cut all the red tape for the banking sector and all of that is is incredibly positive, but I think uh something that a lot of the Trump supporters from the business community uh didn't fully appreciate going into this administration was just this the level of uncertainty we would get from a policy standpoint as it relates to tariffs and lots and lots of other headlines. It's very very difficult if I'm the CFO of a business, I have no idea what the world's going to look like. I don't know what my input costs are going to be in six months from now. It's going to be incredibly difficult for that CFO to sign off on on CAPEX spend and R&D and research when we just don't know what the revenue profile, the expense profile the business might look like. And that pullback from the uncertainty alone could create earnings recession.
