Thoughts from the Frontline

Economic news is increasingly hard to follow these days, mainly because it changes so fast and it gives so many mixed signals. Less than three months ago, we were all in shock from President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. While he paused the worst parts of that plan, US import taxes are still at their highest point in decades. Yet now the headlines are more about oil and geopolitics. It turns out that most of the news is just noise. The markets aren’t significantly different from where they were 90 days ago.

Today we’ll talk again about the SIC—not the Strategic Investment Conference, but the Strategic Investment Conclusions it helped us reach. This is not a recap of the conference. It’s my reflection on some things I think we should practice in our lives and our investment portfolio management. The “strategic” part means we don’t seek information for its own sake. We seek information because it should influence our actions.

One cannot overstate the importance of Claude Shannon and his 1940s work on information theory at Bell Labs. It was foundational to modern telecommunications and electronics. We’ve seen constant improvement in our ability to communicate because we can separate the important information from the noise.

“We desperately as a country want to destroy more jobs. That is the only good outcome in the next 10 years…”

I call our annual event the Strategic Investment Conference for a reason. Understanding the macro trends is only the first step. We all have to apply that knowledge in our own portfolios so we can tolerate short-term fluctuations and achieve our bigger goals.

The Strategic Investment Conference is over. I’m now in my annual recovery period, during which I try to absorb the informational firehose I (with thousands of others) just experienced.

We are in the middle of the Strategic Investment Conference, a fabulous gathering of some of the best economic, political, and geopolitical minds anywhere. I’m really proud of what we’re doing. And at the last minute, we’ve added Dr. Mehmet Oz, nationally regarded cardiovascular surgeon, author of numerous best-selling books with my friend Dr. Mike Roizen, and now head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He will be joined by Dr. Robert Redfield, former CDC director, virologist, and currently one of the leading experts on Long COVID. And Mike Roizen, of course. We will be talking about the interaction of healthcare and government as well as your health. Even if you have not signed up, you can do so today and watch the videos, or read the transcripts and join us live Monday and Wednesday.

I’ve been writing about tariffs for a couple of months now, focusing mostly on the macroeconomic harm and the costs they impose on small businesses. Today I want to consider something else: the new risks they are adding to the financial system alongside the old risks. We had a small taste of it when markets convulsed in early April. That episode passed, but I don’t think the risk is gone. Different and potentially worse may be coming, as the disruptions compound.

Economic data can be soft or hard. “Soft” data reflects attitudes, expectations, opinions, and feelings. It’s a step removed from the “hard” data reflecting actual events. Soft data is still valuable because future expectations shape the hard data that follows.

In some kinds of surgery, it is necessary to keep the patient extremely still because even small, involuntary movements can cause damage. Anesthesiologists administer “paralytic” drugs so the surgeons can do their work safely. Thus, a condition we would normally dread actually helps restore us to health.

Markets don’t like uncertainty. It is a cliché, but for a very good reason. It is more than a truism. In fact, businesses don’t like uncertainty. You and I don’t like uncertainty in our personal lives. When we go to the store, we want to be certain that what we are looking for is there, and at a reasonable price. We want our food orders to be certain. We want our relationships to be certain. In fact, the relationships we value most are the ones in which we feel certain whether it’s personal, business, or investing.

You probably noticed we are having one of those “weeks when decades happen.” Notice also, however, that we are still here. Your investments and businesses may be bruised but you’re still in the game.