Motley Fool Money - A Pause for Most Tariffs
Episode Date: April 9, 2025President Trump announced a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs and a lower 10% reciprocal tariff for most countries. Meanwhile, the trade dispute with China is heating up. (00:21) Jason Moser and Ri...cky Mulvey discuss: - The market’s extreme reactions to tariff news. - China’s “nuclear option” for the U.S. economy. - The key themes coming up this earnings season. - Looking for opportunities in an uncertain environment. Host: Ricky Mulvey Guest: Jason Moser Engineer: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Buckle up.
This trade war might be a long ride.
You're listening to Motley Full Money.
I'm Ricky Mulvey.
Back with me today.
I saw him in person a few days ago, but it's good to see you on the internet.
Jason Moser, thanks for being here.
Ricky, I think I'd like seeing you more in person, man, but it's still great to see you today anyway.
Glad you got back safely.
Got back safely.
Okay to see you on the internet.
Better to see you in your physical form and know that you're a real person.
I'm with you.
12 minutes before we were going to record this show, something happened.
I got a whole outline.
12 minutes before we got a truth.
social post at real Donald Trump on truth. Truth posted basically that based on the lack of respect
that China has shown to the world's markets, I'm hereby raising the tariff charged to China by the
United States of America to 125% effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future,
China will realize that the days of ripping off the United States in other countries is no longer
sustainable or acceptable. This is what the market got excited about.
Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 countries have called representatives of the United States, yada,
to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to trade, trade barriers, tariffs, currency manipulation, and non-monetary tariffs,
and that these countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States,
I have authorized a 90-day pause and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during the
this period of 10% also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Always good to be thanked when your 401K is getting rocked a little bit, Jason. Thank you for
your attention during that time. Markets are celebrating this announcement. I know you haven't
had a whole lot of time to prepare, but what is your first blush reaction to this tariff pause
at the majority of the world? Yeah, I think the pause actually sounds like it could be the title
of the Seinfeld episode, right? I mean, the pause. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a Seinfeld nerd,
and it feels right there. But I think this does really speak to, I mean, the nature of what we've
been going through over the last several days, it has been very emotional for a lot of investors.
It's been a very difficult stretch for a lot of investors, particularly newer investors who've
not been through these types of stretches. But we talk about this often, and I think it just bears
repeating, right? We talk about staying invested in the merits, the virtue in doing that,
because the facts are that oftentimes the worst days in the market are followed up very shortly
thereafter by some of the best days in the market. And if you're not invested during those best
days, you really are killing your returns. And I'm going to repeat myself here, but going back
and just looking at the data over the last, what, 30 years, if you just missed out on the 10 best
days of the market, your returns basically get cut in half. And if you amp that up to 30 days,
if you miss the 30 best days, your returns get cut by close to 80%. And so it just really, I think,
speaks to it's a testament to why we invest the way we invest here at the full, taking that long
view, making sure we get invested and stay invested, because we know there are going to be bad days,
but we also know there are going to be a lot of great days. And this seems like, obviously,
we have not closed yet, but this does seem like a headline that's going to stick. So I would imagine
we should finish up with probably one of those better days today, and that for investors should
feel pretty good at least. I mean, hear me out. You had the contest. You could have the pause.
I could see a way where George somehow insults a trade representative of another country and incites a
tariff war that he finds himself in the middle of that he has to reverse in some way. You could
You could do that if you want to bring that show back in 2025.
Well, I mean, listen, Art Vandalay.
Art Vandala was an exporter, importer, exporters?
One of the other, but yeah, point remains.
When we were at, so Foolapalooza, that's our, like, all-company event, or we were
for the past couple of days because everyone who works on the show was at the all-company event.
That's why we were off.
It was an interesting time to see our colleagues, but also to watch the market where, you know,
this 90-day pause was actually sort of hinted at on.
I believe Monday, where it becomes a tweet that's on some lower ranked X finance account
that gets picked up by other accounts that then gets picked up by CNBC.
It's a headline trillions of dollars in movement in the stock market.
And then the White House comes out and says, nope, that's fake news.
We're not negotiating.
These tariffs are in effect.
We had that roller coaster from like plus 4% to minus 1% in one day.
now we're having trillions of dollars moving again on this truth social post.
This is a roller coaster ride that is a market-driven, president-driven return.
Are there any lessons that you're taking from that, just the sheer violence in the market
happening right now?
Lessons, yeah.
Well, I mean, I think, obviously, that initial, it has obviously been a very volatile,
volatile time.
I mean, that initial post seemed to be based on something where Besant said something to the extent of like the administration is going to do whatever the administration is going to do.
And then somehow that was parsed and interpreted as like, well, there's going to be a pause.
And then someone gets out there on the social media.
They say there's going to be a 90-day pause.
It then goes viral.
And of course, the markets react immediately because stuff just gets picked up so quickly.
And I think for me, I mean, honestly, it's just it's a good reminder.
of you have to be able to take everything with a grain of salt and make sure that you don't
overreact or react too quickly because oftentimes when it comes to financial media or when it
comes to even social media, people love to be able to be the first one to break the story,
right? That's just like they go, I want to be the one that breaks this story. And there are
oftentimes where it's the case where it's actually not a story at all. And it turned out to
be that that that was not correct. There was not a 90-day pause announced at that time. And then
we saw the markets quickly correct again because we found out it was kind of flawed information.
So I think to me, it sort of goes back to, you know, that old Silicon Valley axiom, move fast and
break things, right? And I think for investors, we need to kind of look at it from the other side
of the coin there. Move slowly, right? And don't get emotional, right? Don't sit there, just make
hasty decisions based on something that you are not even sure whether it may or may not be the case.
Because in that case, it turned out to be not true. Now, we've seen today where it does seem like
this information we've gotten is verified and actually is true. But if you made a hasty decision
based on that information yesterday, you could have really put yourself into a hole that would have been
very difficult to climb out of. It was a rumor. It was fake news. Then it was real news.
And I'm not about to throw stones here.
I mean, I made two mistakes on the show last week that I want to correct now.
When we were first doing the day after Liberation Day, which Liberation Day seems much longer
ago than about a week ago, I didn't give enough context that it was, that one of the trade
barriers that was being punished were trade deficits, which can be a good thing.
I have a trade deficit with the Spotify Corporation.
I have a trade deficit with Costco.
And I'm trying to break this stuff down and basically, like, many, you know,
mentioning that dairy from the U.S. to Canada gets this crazy tariff if it's above quota.
In 2024, the U.S. exported more than a billion dollars in dairy products to Canada.
And currently, American producers do not export enough dairy to meet the Canadian tariff quota.
And there's different issues with non-monetary tariffs.
But you're trying to take all of this information in and deliver it to listeners.
And I made a couple of mistakes last week that I'm correcting right now.
you know what, it's good to be here and not see NBC where we're not moving trillions and
trillions of dollars, Jason.
So, Ricky, I think that's a great lesson for people, by the way, we all get things wrong
and being able to say that can make all the difference in the world.
I think it makes you think a little bit more going forward in investing.
We have to admit we get things wrong all the time.
That's part of the deal, right?
But once you get to the point where you can actually make those mistakes and embrace those
inevitable mistakes. I think it ultimately makes you a much stronger investor going forward because
you know that you're learning. You're keeping an open mind and being willing to change your mind
when the facts change. And to me, that is a key part of being a good investor. So stay humble,
right? For newer listeners, I think we're getting an influx of newer listeners that just want to find out
what's going on. And there's a feeling that markets are moving on these truth posts,
charts,
headlines about phone calls
between the president
and other world leaders.
And, you know,
I'm going to get political for a sec.
Our president does have a meme coin.
He is involved in the markets.
And I think there can be a feeling that, you know,
the stock market is rigged
and this is one big casino,
especially as I'm looking at these big movements.
For a newer listener,
for a newer investor,
what would you say to them
if they're having that feeling right now?
Because in some ways,
like,
it's not entirely.
really wrong? No, I don't think it is. I think in today's day and age with the things like
meme coins and meme stocks and stonks and all that stuff, it can definitely feel more rigged or
more like a casino than it did perhaps 20 years ago. So I get it. It can feel that way sometimes.
I think part of it really boils down to understanding what game you as the individual
investor are playing. Because in most cases, we are just not playing the same game.
as your money managers and big institutions out there.
It reminds me, it takes me back to that old Ben Graham saw where, you know,
I mean, he says in the short run, the market is a voting machine,
but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.
And this really is true.
I mean, we are focused on being owners of businesses over time
that will continue to get heavier, right, in the good way.
But we have no edge when it comes to getting in and out of positions.
There's so much information that flows so quickly.
we just simply aren't privy to it.
And then the costs that come with being wrong in the trading game are simply not worth it.
And when you're trying to trade, I mean, you're wrong an awful lot of times.
So it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Now, if you look at the chart, it tells the tale.
I mean, sure, the S&P is, well, before this 90-day pause was announced,
is down around 15% year-to-date.
And it's only up, you know, maybe 11% over the last three years.
look over the last 10 years, it's up 140%. Over the last 30 years, it's up 882%. Now, there are a lot of
bumps along that journey, of course, but getting invested and then the key here, staying
invested is the only way that you can ensure that you'll actually be a part of that.
Our co-founder, David Gardner, is on X. I encourage you to follow him. He's our chief
rulebreaker. And he wrote, quote, in my 58 years, not sure I can remember,
a market drop, more akin to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Wound, mind you.
It's a two-day, actually two-month drop.
Let's do even more tariffs, am I right?
We got a good thing going, pour it on.
Sarcasm is the wit of fools.
And I think there's two elements here I want to talk to you about.
We talk about a lot of market crashes in the past lessons from them.
Some things are the same, the feelings of panic, people wanting to move to cash,
people wanting to trade more often when they're experiencing the pain of seeing months and
months of hard work vanish in their 401k and stock portfolios. What seems to be different this
time is that it is not systemic. It's not like 2008. It's not like the carry trade, even from a
couple of months ago. What's it mean for stock investors that the market dropped and the ups and downs
we're seeing right now is self-inflicted and not systemic? Yeah, well, I think this is something
where, ultimately what that means, this is something that there was a choice in what to do and
and also how to do it. You can imagine if we weren't going through all of this tariff stuff,
then the market likely wouldn't be performing the way it's been performing over the last few months.
I mean, we might end up being in the same position we are today. Who knows? But the volatility,
I have to imagine, would have been far, far lower. And it's funny, just based on the timing of this,
because of this 90-day pause that just came out. But imagine if a headline came out tomorrow saying these
tariffs are suspended, right? Indefinitely, or 90 days or whatever. And countries are negotiating
ways to move forward on a more sustainable path together. And I mean, that would certainly have
an impact. And lo and behold, we saw this headline that just came out. And that at least, I think,
has the market encouraged that we might be on that path for productive negotiations towards
more sustainable solutions. So what would you say to the investor who sees today's very
large market increase, says this is my chance to get out for a little bit. We just had one of the
best days, and this is going to be followed by more tit for tat trade war negotiations with China,
which is still heating up despite the large increase. And that could be very bad for the U.S.
economy. I want to get to more cash, or I want to get out of my U.S. stock position and put
myself into more international equities. Yeah, I think a lot of this, so first and foremost,
I would encourage folks, granted, the headline today has obviously had a very positive impact on markets.
I would not say that, okay, well, everything's taken care of.
Now, problem solved because I don't think that's going to be the case.
I mean, I think we're going to see more volatility as time goes on here.
But I do think a lot of this boils down to what stage of your investing life that you're in.
And we talked about this on the show before.
If you're younger and you're working and you're going to grow your wealth mode,
well, I mean, getting out of the market makes zero sense.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean, you need to continue to add, continue to diversify your holdings as well as you can in order to offer some sort of stability to help offset some of this volatility.
Dividend stocks, I know they're really boring sounding, Ricky, but dividend stocks are great for investors of all ages.
So keep that in mind.
If you're in more protect your wealth mode, right, you're a little bit older, you're kind of looking towards retirement.
You need to make sure you're protecting that wealth.
Well, then absolutely, you need to make sure that you're allocated accordingly and have a little bit more.
more stability in your portfolio. The cash is always nice to have, and it's a nice way to hedge these
downturns. It's also a good reminder to make sure that your money that you know that you're
going to need over the next three to five years, right? If you've got college tuition bills to pay
or whatever else it may be, something over the course of the next three to five years, if you know
you need that money, probably shouldn't have that money in the market. Or at the very least,
it should be in a stable instrument that while offers lower returns, it isn't subject to the vagaries
of the market. We're going to talk about the trade war heating up with China and what's going on
with Walmart just after this. Some of the best lessons don't come from a classroom. They come from
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All right, J-Mo, we got too much news today.
No B segment. We're sticking to our A segment outline.
The trade war with China continues to heat up.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this was before the 125% tariff from the United States a few minutes ago.
China said it was going to increase tariffs on all U.S. imports to 84%.
But the thing that's important for this is that it may go beyond tariffs, and the situation
may not just be import, export duties.
It could go to other things.
It could go to export controls of critical minerals used to make chips.
It could be more regulatory investigations to punish U.S. companies, blacklist more U.S.
companies from the Chinese market.
And the big one, which is a sort of economic nuclear option, is that as of January, China had
about $761 billion in U.S. government bonds.
There is a nuclear option where they just want to sell all of those into the market
and sort of crush the price of U.S. bonds, which increases the interest rates on those bonds.
That's the one I'm worried about.
How about you?
So I wouldn't say that I'm worried, but I'm really glad that you framed that the way you did
because I think what you did is you made the point that this is a very complex.
issue with a lot of moving parts. But to the bond question specifically, I wouldn't say I'm
worried, but it's something to watch for sure. I mean, normally during these volatile times, I mean,
we would see a flight to safety and money would be flowing from higher risk instruments like stocks
to more risk-free type instruments like government bonds. But there are certainly some questions
regarding bonds today, particularly as those prices continue to fall. And I mean, there are a couple
a different perspectives. There's a conversation about the basis trade, for example, where the
basis is the difference between the price of a government bond and its future contract, which is
an agreement to buy that bond that'll later date for a specific price. And so hedge funds institutional
money, when they see a meaningful delta there, right, they'll buy the cheaper bond, and then they'll
short the more expensive future contract in order to try to play a little bit of kind of an arbitrage deal,
right. And at some point when the price is converged, then, you know, they will go ahead and cash out
and make a little bit of profit there. And I think it's interesting to note in regard to this
basis trade, Apollo Global's chief economist noted recently here, the basis trade today represents
about $800 billion in growing. So it's not insignificant at all. But to your point about China
in other countries dumping U.S. bonds, I think that's a great observation as well. I'll
give a shout out to Maddie Arger Singer earlier today. He noted on our website that, you know,
traditionally larger buyers of those treasuries, countries like China and Japan, they obviously
have been prime targets to be tariffs, and it could materialize where these countries decide
to unload those bonds. And unload those bonds, prices go down, yields go up, and now all of a sudden
we're stuck in a little bit more of a tricky interest rate environment, which very, very
then begs the question, what does the Fed do? And kind of going back to what I was giving you kudos for
at the very beginning there, it is a very complex situation with a lot of different outcomes.
I'm sure it's a busy day for Jerome Powell. And speaking of institutional investors,
I think it's important for all investors to zoom out on what's going on right now. We talked about
the danger of reacting to headlines, but there could be fundamental paradigm shifts happening.
We already know about some of them, like artificial intelligence, and Ray Dahlia wrote about it in an article on X, spicely titled, Don't make the mistake of thinking that what's happening, that what's now happening is mostly about tariffs.
I got an edit for that headline if he's looking for any.
One idea is that the debt that the U.S. has taken on is unsustainable and that, quote, it is obviously incongruous to have both large trade imbalances and large capital imbalances in a huge capital imbalances in a
de-globalizing world in which the major players can't trust that the other major players
won't cut them off from the items they need, which is the American worry, or pay them the
money that they are owed, which is the Chinese worry. So basically, the U.S. has taken on a bunch
of debt to buy goods from China, and now that order is getting fundamentally restructured.
Dahlio can be kind of a perma bear. I'm not saying I'm a smarter investor than him, but that's
just an observation. He likes to call a market crash. Any observations about what he wrote in that
article or any takes based on what he's saying here. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I really like reading
Ray Dalio's stuff. I mean, he can come across as a little bit more glass half empty at times,
I guess. I mean, I get where he's coming from, though. I think he makes some really good
points here, though, in regard to instability and unsustainability on several fronts. I mean,
economic in the sense of debt levels. I mean, I think we all probably agree that our debt levels
are unsustainable. You have to figure out a way to crack that code. Domestic political order is
very chaotic and very polarizing, to say the least right now. And this certainly then extends
out to geopolitics and relationships with other countries. And then, you know, the constant evolution
of technology and how that's changing our lives and careers. So I think he raises a lot of great
points there, things to be concerned with, to follow them, keep our eyes on out. By the same token,
I don't think the world is coming to an end. And I think these issues will very likely persist in the
future, but hopefully just to a lesser degree. We've done a lot of big macro, and there's still big
macro to talk about. But let's get to some of the individual companies. And one of those is Walmart.
So I think it was last week or the week before, we're talking about, like, if you're a company that
sells stuff and you're importing stuff, why are you issuing guidance right now? You have no idea.
what's going on. Walmart kind of did that. This is what they said in the press release. I'm going to let
you translate it. They said, quote, the company expects Q1 sales growth to continue to be in line
with its three to four percent outlook. And annual sales and operating income growth,
guidance remains unchanged. The range of outcomes for Q1 operating income growth has widened
due to less favorable category mix, higher casualty claims expense, and the desire to maintain
flexibility to invest in price as tariffs are implemented.
end quote.
Sort of the headlines we're seeing on this is that Walmart is cutting guidance,
but that doesn't seem to be entirely true.
What's Walmart telling Wall Street here?
I think Walmart is telling Wall Street that they are unsure as to how
the costs of doing business are ultimately going to impact their bottom line.
And I think, you know, in regard to Walmart and how they get their stuff,
right, their supply chain, I think it's important to note,
that, I mean, it's estimated that about 60 to 70% of Walmart's globally sourced products actually come from China.
Now, if you go one layer down, that figure could be close to 70 to 80% of merchandise sold in the actual U.S.
And so the U.S. is even a little bit more susceptible to that.
So, I mean, that's not surprising.
We knew that Walmart was very dependent on China in regard to their supply chain.
But by the same token, Walmart plays a very interesting.
role in the global economy, clearly here domestically, but globally as well. And I think that
this is a situation. We see these situations a lot where companies enter these stretches,
some fare way better than others, right? But these are situations where I think the strong can get
even stronger. And I thought it was really interesting to see that Walmart shares were actually
up 5% on this release. Now, that was before the 90-day delay.
headline just came out. Now, Walmart shares are up 10%, which that's a big move for a stock
like this. And there was just a noteworthy conference from chief financial officer, John Rainey,
said in an investor presentation here, that he believes that the company emerges with greater share
when it leans in to periods of economic uncertainty. And that kind of goes back to my point
of the strong only gets stronger because they have the scale to deal with this situation.
They can take a little bit of a hit on pricing in the near term in order to gain share in the long term.
And if you just take that to the nth degree, you might go all years ago.
That's what Amazon did, right?
That was their playbook.
We're going to lose money to gain share because we know 10, 20 years down the road.
It's going to be the share that matters.
And that's ultimately what's going to help us make money.
Walmart, obviously, a little bit of an older business than Amazon.
But I think they're still playing a little bit from that playbook there.
And so it doesn't surprise me to see.
the market receiving Walmart's news the way it is, because typically, when you see companies get
out there and withdraw guidance, much less cut guidance, the market doesn't typically receive
it very well, but today we're seeing George Costanza, right? It's the opposite.
The Seinfeld references are in full force right now. So to put that in context, Walmart jumps 10%.
It's more than a $700 billion company. That means that the jump just today is the entire
market cap of Kroger, which is one of its larger grocery competitors. It's pretty astounding.
Just on this announcement, it is a wild time to be an investor. I don't have anything smart to say on that.
Big banks are kicking off earnings season this week, and you can be sure that a lot of the Wall Street
analysts are going to be looking, Jason, for clarity. Clarity on what's going on. And the poor corporate
executives, very poor, we should feel bad for them, are going to be, you know, it's going to be
cloudy outlooks. A lot of questions for these retailers, really for any company. When you're
looking through the earnings transcripts that are about to come out, what are you going to be
control effing for? What are the terms? What are you looking to see from the companies you follow?
Is earnings season kicks off? First and foremost, for me, it's going to be the R word recession.
And I think the main reason why I say that is because now all of a sudden, we're seeing a lot of
these banking leaders come out and really start calling for the likelihood of, you know,
us entering a recession if we're not already in a recession.
We saw Larry Fink say something to that extent the other day.
Jamie Diamond came out and said that here recently.
Morgan Stanley saying basically the same things.
I think to me it's going to be very interesting to see how these leaders feel about the economy and a recession.
And ultimately, it's sort of a relationship that the Fed plays with this.
because that there is this there is this notion right i'm not saying this is what's happening but there
is this notion that that the trump administration is is kind of trying to force the feds hand into
cutting rates a little bit right and and that that has played into some of the decision-making
year i'm not saying that's the case but i'm saying that's a notion that's out there and it'll be
very interesting to see if they have anything to say about that as well but but for me i think
the recession talk uh is going to be what's what'll be top of mind for for
a lot of folks.
For me, it's going to be supply chain, you know, right before this recording.
Let's say I'm Nike and I make more than half of my shoes in Vietnam.
And these tariffs, this 46% tariff that was previously going to come into effect in Vietnam,
maybe I'm thinking about opening a factory in the United States of America.
Now I've got a 90-day pause.
What am I going to be doing about this capital investment that is sort of hot and cold yes
and no in and out?
And are companies really going to bring more manufacturing?
to the United States, given the unevenness of these announcements and trade disputes?
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
I mean, it seems like that's clearly a part of this.
It's about reshoring and attempting to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.,
which I think is a great long-term goal.
I think we'd all probably be on board with that.
But that's not something that happens overnight either, right?
So if that is something that's really steering the ship, I mean, that takes a while.
And that really, that I think adds to a lot of uncertainty,
particularly when it seems like the headlines change every single day.
I want to finish off by talking about one company.
I know you follow closely.
One, I've started to take more of a look at
because it seems like people are getting more negative on it.
And that's Adobe.
Now trades at about 16 times free cash flow.
And that was before whatever happened during this recording.
And also has a $25 billion share repurchase
authorization, which is a lot. I think the total market caps around $140-ish billion. There's a storyline
that companies are going to cut back spending. Maybe some of their subscription software that they
offer is going to get steamrolled by AI. Who needs Photoshop when you can just have AI edit your
photo, that kind of thing. That's true. But as we close out, maybe how are you looking for any
opportunities right now and any thoughts on Adobe just for me is your colleague and co-worker looking
at stocks. Well, as your colleague, Ricky, I will say, I'm also an Adobe shareholder, and I've
recommended the stock and inner services as well. So, it's a company that I'm still fond of,
and I still believe in. AI has been a big point of conversation with many of us on the investing
team when it comes to Adobe. That said, it's not like they aren't chasing that opportunity.
They most certainly are. And anecdotally, people I speak with who use these tools like them a lot,
but it's clearly a much more competitive market for digital content creation. So, Adobe,
is going to have to work to maintain its position in the market and figure out ways to grow it.
As I said, it's one I own personally and I intend to continue holding.
But I think for investors, it's just keeping an eye on signs that they are losing meaningful share.
If we see signs that that's happening, then we need to reassess.
I mean, the company's still growing the top line at a double-digit rate.
They continue to bring even more down to the bottom line, which is encouraging.
It makes a ton of cash.
The balance sheet's still in very good shape with plenty of cash.
in low-rate long-term debt that's staggered out nicely.
And as you said, they continue to utilize that cash to buyback shares,
and they bring that share account down.
I think it's just going to be paying attention to how sticky that subscriber base remains,
because that's one of the great parts about Adobe, historically, as an investment,
is this sticky subscriber base.
But as the market becomes more competitive and there are more options out there,
you have to ask yourself, are there really switching costs there?
I don't know.
I mean, we're going to find out here, I think, soon enough.
But I like the things that they're doing, and I'm willing to give this company some leash here to kind of let them go do their thing.
As far as other companies, you know, I've not changed my investing behavior really at all through this.
I mean, I haven't sold anything.
I've continued to invest by virtue of just making sure my paycheck is contributing to my 401K,
and I'm investing in, you know, my Vanguard Total Stock Market Index fund there.
Individual stocks, I've come to find, and this is really one of the greater lessons David Garders ever taught me,
I'm really only interested in these companies that I already own. I like adding to positions that have done very well for me through the years.
And I think of companies like Home Depot and UPS on the dividend side, for example, where those share prices are depressed,
but these are long-term successful businesses.
on the growth side, I look towards companies like Shopify and Axon Enterprise as examples of
companies right. I would be very happy to add to those positions as well. But I'm taking it very
slow. Like I said back in the beginning of the show there, we're doing the opposite of what Silicon
Valley does, Ricky. We're not breaking things fast. We're not moving fast and breaking things.
We're going to take it slow and make sure we don't let our emotions get the best of us.
He's an expert on imports and exports. Art Vandalay. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for your time in your
You got it. Happy to be here.
As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about,
and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against.
So don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you hear.
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The Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you.
I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
