"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 is to bully his opponents by threatening to harm them, then wait for them to come back with offers to please him in order to win his forgiveness.
The stock market rallied on Friday and today on news that Trump's tariffs will be flexible and negotiable. Yet today he also said countries that purchase oil and gas from Venezuela will face a 25% tariff on the trade those nations have with the US. China was the largest destination for Venezuelan crude last year, followed by the US, India, and Spain. So is Trump really about to slap China with a 25% tariff on top of the 20% he already imposed? Beats us!
We are all waiting to find out what Trump does on April 2, when the US is expected to impose reciprocal tariffs on the "Dirty 15" countries that have the biggest trade deficits with the US. Ideally, that will lead to negotiations to lower tariffs reciprocally and not lead to a wave of retaliatory tariffs. But who knows?!
For now, let's take comfort in the apparent resilience of the US economy:
(1) The weekly Redbook retail sales index rose 5.5% y/y through the week of March 15 (chart). That's a solid reading in light of the recent drop in consumer sentiment measures.
(2) Another upbeat indicator is S&P 500 forward earnings, which rose to another record high during the March 20 week. Its level and y/y growth rate coincide with those of the Index of Coincident Economic Indicators (chart). The former rose 11.5% y/y through February. That's a solid reading.
(3) If you are looking for bad news, there was some in the S&P Global flash manufacturing PMI for March. It fell from 52.7 in February to 49.8 this month (chart). However, the flash nonmanufacturing PMI jumped from 51.0 to 54.3.
(4) “Helter-skelter” also describes the action in the stock market so far this year. That's consistent with our "choppy" forecast for the first half of this year (chart). It's been mostly choppy to the downside since February 19. We expect it might be choppy to the upside in April and May.
