"Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose..."

I unfortunately wasn't at the Sphere over the weekend in Vegas seeing Dead & Co with my son who was there instead with friends but I did see they sang the song 'Deal' Saturday night and a line in the song seemed perfect with new tariff news coming on April 2nd. Perfect from the perspective of what the Administration is trying to balance, how the business decisions will be made in response and how investors/markets react from here.

"Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose. You and me bound to spend some time wondering what to choose. It goes to show you don't ever know, watch each card you play and play it slow." I wish we saw more of that last line.

The WSJ on Friday had some stats worth stewing over on tariffs. They said "the average US tariff rate (2.7%) on foreign goods is higher than the average rate in Canada (1.8%), Japan (2%) and Europe (2%), and roughly the same as in Mexico, according to the World Bank. While other countries impose non-tariff barriers, so does the US."

They go on to use data from Andy Laperriere of Piper Sandler who "estimates that Mr. Trump's auto tariffs, when combined with his levies on China, steel and aluminum, will raise the effective US tariff rate to nearly 8%, the highest in 75 years."

This of course is before the reciprocal tariffs we'll hear about on Wednesday where we all hope it will result in an actual lowering of global tariffs if it works to encourage other countries to lower their tariffs on our exports to them, offsetting any fresh tariffs we put on them. But now we hear there is the possibility of just a blanket tariff on ALL incoming imports.