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An Investor's Take on the Latest Tariff News

An Investor's Take on the Latest Tariff News

Yahoo15-04-2025

President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on some tariffs. Meanwhile, the trade dispute with China is heating up.
In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser and host Ricky 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.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.
A full transcript is below.
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This video was recorded on April 9, 2025
Ricky Mulvey: Buckle up. This trade war might be a long ride. You're listening to Motley Fool 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.
Jason Moser: Ricky, I think I like seeing you more in person, man, but still great to see you today anyway. Glad you got back safely.
Ricky Mulvey: 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.
Jason Moser: I'm with you.
Ricky Mulvey: Twelve minutes before we were going to record this show. Something happened. I got a whole outline. Twelve 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 and 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 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 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.
Jason Moser: I think the pause actually sounds like it could be the title of a Seinfeld episode. The pause. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a Seinfeld nerd and it feels right there. 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 very difficult stretch for a lot of investors, particularly newer investors who have not been through these types of stretches. But we talk about this often, and I think it just bears repeating. We talk about staying invested in the merits, the virtue in doing that, because the facts are that oftentimes the worst stays in the market.
Are followed up very shortly thereafter by some of the best days in the market. If you're not invested during those best days, you really are killing your returns. 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 ten best days of the market, your returns basically get cut in half. If you amp that up to 30 days, if you miss the 30 best days, your returns get cut by close to 80%. 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. 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.
Ricky Mulvey: 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 do that if you want to bring that show back in 2025.
Jason Moser: Let me listen. Art Vandelay was an exporter or importer. Was he a exporter? Is one or the other, but, yeah, point remains.
Ricky Mulvey: When we were at full Palooza, that's our all company event, where 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 this 90 day pause was actually hinted at on, I believe, Monday, where it becomes a tweet that's on some lower ranked ex 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. Then the White House comes out and says, No, that's fake news. We're not negotiating. These tariffs are in effect. We had that roller coaster from plus 4% to -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?
Jason Moser: Lessons, yeah, well I think obviously, that initial it has obviously been a very volatile time. That initial post seemed to be based on something where Bessant said something to the extent of the administration is going to do whatever the administration is going to do. Then somehow that was parsed and interpreted as like, well, there's going to be a pause. 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. I think for me honestly, 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. That's just like I want to be the one that breaks this story. There are often times where it's the case where it's actually not a story at all, and it turned out to be that that was not correct. There was not a 90 day pause announced at that time. Then we saw the markets quickly correct again because we found out it was flawed information. I think to me, it goes back to that old Silicon Valley axiom, move fast and break things. I think for investors, we need to look at it from the other side of the coin there, move slowly. Don't get emotional.
Don't sit there and 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 had been very difficult to climb out of.
Ricky Mulvey: It was a rumor. It was fake news, then it was real news. I'm not about to throw stones here. 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 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. I'm trying to break this stuff down and basically, mentioning that dairy from the US to Canada gets this crazy tariff if it's above quota. In 2024, the US 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. There's different issues with non monetary tariffs, but you're trying to take all of this information in and deliver it to listeners. I made a couple of mistakes last week that I'm correcting right now, and you know what? It's good to be here and not see NBC where we're not moving trillions and trillions of dollars, Jason.
Jason Moser: Ricky, I think that's a great lesson for people, by the way, we all get things wrong in 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 and investing. We have to admit we get things wrong all the time. That's part of the deal. 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. To me, that is a key part of being a good investor. Stay humble.
Ricky Mulvey: 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. I'm going to get political for a sec. Our president does have a meme coin. He is involved in the markets. I think there can be a feeling that 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 it's not entirely wrong.
Jason Moser: No, I don't think it is. I think in today's day and age, with 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. 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, he says, In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. This really is true.
We are focused on being owners of businesses over time that will continue to get heavier, in a 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. Then the costs that come with being wrong in the trading game are simply not worth it, when you're trying to trade you're wrong an awful lot of times. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, if you look at the chart, it tells the tale. Sure, the S&P is well, before this 90 day pause was announced to me is down around 15% year to date. It's only up maybe 11% over the last three years. But 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.
Ricky Mulvey: Our co founder, David Gardner is on X. I encourage you to follow him. He's our chief rulebreaker. He wrote, "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". 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?
Jason Moser: Well, I think this is something where ultimately, what that means, this is something that there was a choice in what to do, 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. 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 lower. 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. Indefinitely or 90 days or whatever and countries are negotiating ways to move forward on a more sustainable path together. 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 marks encouraged that we might be on that path for productive negotiations toward more sustainable solutions.
Ricky Mulvey: 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. That could be very bad for the US economy. I want to get more cash or I want to get out of my US stock position and put myself into more international equities.
Jason Moser: Yeah, I think a lot of this. 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 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. 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 getting out of the market makes zero sense, and makes no sense whatsoever. You need to continue to add, continue to diversify your holdings as well as you can in order to offer some stability there 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. Keep that in mind. If you're in more protect your wealth mode. You're a little bit older, you're looking toward 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 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 you know that you're going to need over the next 3-5 years. 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.
Ricky Mulvey: We're going to talk about the trade war heating up with China and what's going on with Walmart just after this.
Jane Perles: As a longtime foreign correspondent, I've worked in lots of places, nowhere as important to the world as China. But these days, few journalists are able to get the inside story. That's because China has shut the door to much of the media. I'm Jane Perles, former Beijing bureau chief for the New York Times. On Face-Off the US versus China, we're trying to break through. We'll talk about Trump and Xi Jinping, AI, TikTok, and even Hollywood. New episodes of Face-Off are available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Ricky Mulvey: 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 US 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, could be more regulatory investigations to punish US companies, blacklist more US companies from the Chinese market, and the big one, which is a economic nuclear option, is that as of January, China had about $761 billion in US government bonds. There is a nuclear option where they just want to sell all of those into the market and crush the price of US bonds, which increases the interest rates on those bonds, that's the one I'm worried about. How about you?
Jason Moser: 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. I mean, there are a couple of different perspectives. There's this conversation about the basis trade, for example, where the basis trade is basically the basis, the difference between the price of a government bond and its future contract, which is an agreement to buy that bond at a later date for a specific price. Hedge funds institutional money when they see a meaningful delta there, 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 an arbitrage deal.
At some point when the prices converge, then they will go ahead and cash out and make a little bit of a profit there. I think it's interesting to know in regard to this basis trade, Apollo Global's chief economist noted recently here, the basis trade today represents about $800 billion and growing, so it's not insignificant at all. But to your point about China and other countries dumping US bonds, I think that's a great observation as well. I'll give a shout out to Matt Argersinger who earlier today, he noted on our website that traditionally, larger buyers of those treasuries, countries like China and Japan, they obviously have been prime targets of the 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 then begs the question, what does the Fed do? 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.
Ricky Mulvey: I'm sure it's a busy day for Jerome Powell. 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 Dalio wrote about it in an article on X, spicily titled Don't Make the Mistake Of Thinking 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 US has taken on is unsustainable and that, "It is obviously incongruous to have both large trade imbalances and large capital imbalances in a deglobalizing 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." Basically, the US has taken on a bunch of debt to buy goods from China, and now that order is getting fundamentally restructured. Dalio can be 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?
Jason Moser: Yeah, I get it. I really like reading Ray Dalio's stuff. He can come across as a little more glass half empty at times, I guess. 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. Economic, in the sense of debt levels. 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. Then the constant evolution of technology and how that's changing our lives and careers. I think he raises a lot of great points there, things to be concerned with to follow and keep our eyes on. 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.
Ricky Mulvey: 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. I think it was last week or the week before we were talking about, 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 did that. This is what they said in the press release. I'm going to let you translate it. They said, "The company expects Q1 sales growth to continue to be in line with its 3-4% outlook in 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." 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?
Jason Moser: Well, 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. I think, in regard to Walmart and how they get their stuff, their supply chain, I think it's important to note that, I mean, it's estimated that about 60-70% of Walmart's globally sourced products actually come from China. Now, if you go one layer down, that figure could be close to 70-80% of merchandise sold in the actual US and so the US is even a little bit more susceptible to that. That's not surprising. Walmart is 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. I think that this is a situation, we see these situations a lot where companies enter these stretches, some fare way better than others. But these are situations where I think the strong can get even stronger. 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. 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 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 take that to the Nth degree years ago, that's what Amazon did, 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 is 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, it's the opposite.
Ricky Mulvey: The Seinfeld references are in full force right now. 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.
Jason Moser: It's pretty astounding.
Ricky Mulvey: 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 earning 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. The poor corporate executives, very poor, we should feel bad for them, it's going to be cloudy outlooks, 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 fing for? What are the terms? What are you looking to see from the companies you follow as earning season kicks off?
Jason Moser: First and foremost, for me, it's going to be the R word, recession. 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 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 Dimon came out and said that here recently, Morgan Stanley saying basically the same thing. I think, to me, it's going to be very interesting to see how these leaders feel about the economy and a recession. Then ultimately, it's the relationship that the Fed plays with this because there is this notion, I'm not saying this is what's happening, but there is this notion that the Trump administration is trying to force the Fed's hand into cutting rates a little bit and that has played into some of the decision making here. 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 for me, I think the recession talk is going to be what'll be top of mind for a lot of folks.
Ricky Mulvey: For me, it's going to be supply chain, 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 hot and cold, yes and no, in and out? Are companies really going to bring more manufacturing to the United States given the unevenness of these announcements and trade disputes?
Jason Moser: Yeah, I think that's a great question. It seems like that's clearly a part of this. It's about reassuring and attempting to bring manufacturing back to the US, 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. If that is something that's really steering this ship, that takes a while and really that, I think, adds to a lot of uncertainty, particularly when it seems like the headlines change every single day.
Ricky Mulvey: 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. Also has a $25 billion share repurchase authorization, which is a lot. I think the total market cap is 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 steam rolled by AI. Who needs Photoshop when you can just have AI edit your photo, that kind of thing?
Jason Moser: That's true.
Ricky Mulvey: But as we close out, maybe, how are you looking for any opportunities right now, any thoughts on Adobe? Just for me as your colleague and co-worker looking at stocks.
Jason Moser: Well, as your colleague, Ricky, I will say I'm also an Adobe shareholder and I've recommended the stock and our services as well. 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. 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 and creation. 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. The company's still growing the top line at a double digit rate and they continue to bring even more down to the bottom line, which is encouraging. Makes a ton of cash, the balance sheet is still in very good shape with plenty of cash in low rate long term debt that staggered out nicely. As you said, they continue to utilize that cash to buy back 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? I don't know, 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 let them go do their thing.
As far as other companies, I've not changed my investing behavior really at all through this. 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 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 Gardner's ever taught me, it's 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 toward companies like Shopify and Exxon Enterprise as examples of companies would be very happy to add to those positions as well. But I'm taking it very slow. Like I said, back, 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. I'm going to take it slow and make sure we don't let our emotions.
Ricky Mulvey: He's an expert on imports and exports. Art Vandelay I appreciate you being here. Thank you for your time and insight.
Jason Moser: You got it, happy to be here.
Ricky Mulvey: 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 or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. While personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers, 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.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jason Moser has positions in Adobe, Amazon, Nike, and Shopify. Ricky Mulvey has positions in Kroger, Shopify, Spotify Technology, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Amazon, Costco Wholesale, Nike, Shopify, Spotify Technology, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Kroger. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
An Investor's Take on the Latest Tariff News was originally published by The Motley Fool

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Nvidia CEO on the UK: ‘I'm going to invest here'

There was no shortage of praise between UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Jensen Huang, CEO of semiconductor giant Nvidia, during the opening panel of London Tech Week. Huang said it was 'vital' to invest in the UK, where, in his view, the country's research culture is one of its biggest assets. The leader of the world's most valuable company said the UK is in a 'goldilocks circumstance', given its access to a rich AI community and its position as the third-largest AI venture capital investor after the US and China. The US CEO said the biggest factor holding the UK back was its lack of infrastructure, but he praised an earlier announcement from Starmer that the government would invest an extra £1bn ($1.4bn) to scale up the country's computing capability by a factor of 20. Starmer was pleased to hear Huang's optimism, saying that Nvidia's interest in the UK was 'a vote of confidence'. The PM also announced in his opening keynote speech that the government would launch an initiative to train 7.5 million AI workers by 2030 and invest £187m in tech education. Huang said Nvidia was ready to invest in the UK by launching an AI lab to help 'start off the AI ecosystem and infrastructure'. Ahead of the CEO's appearance with Starmer, Nvidia announced several partnerships with the UK. Nscale, a British cloud computing provider, announced it would develop AI infrastructure with 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units by 2026. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority also launched a 'supercharged sandbox' with Nvidia, allowing banks and other organisations to experiment with AI products. Starmer's growth-focused government has been vocal about the role AI will play in the country's future, reflected in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, published in January. While he acknowledged public fears about the onslaught of AI, particularly regarding job displacement, the PM said every part of society could benefit. 'By the end of this parliament we should be able to look every parent in the eye in every region in Britain and say, 'look what technology can deliver for you',' Starmer said. Huang reflected this optimism, describing AI as "the great equaliser", predicting every industry in the UK would eventually be a tech industry. He added that the chatbot aspect of large language models democratised technology, because there is no need to know a more complicated coding language anymore. "The way you programme AI is like the way you programme a person," he said. "Nvidia CEO on the UK: 'I'm going to invest here' " was originally created and published by Investment Monitor, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Palantir Stock Soars 69% Year to Date: Time to Hold or Chase?
Palantir Stock Soars 69% Year to Date: Time to Hold or Chase?

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Palantir Stock Soars 69% Year to Date: Time to Hold or Chase?

Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR has surged 69% year to date, eclipsing the industry's modest 13% average and outshining heavyweights like Nvidia NVDA and Oracle ORCL. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Nvidia, a leading force in AI and graphics processing technology, has recorded a 6% gain so far this year. Similarly, Oracle, renowned for its enterprise software and cloud infrastructure services, has gained 5% year to date. In a macroeconomic landscape that has left many tech giants limping, Palantir's relentless rally stands out, but does this pace leave any meaningful upside for new investors? While Nvidia continues wrestling with cyclical demand and Oracle faces pressure on its cloud transition pace, Palantir is thriving by doubling down on artificial intelligence and data-centric enterprise software. The key question now: Is this AI darling still a buy, or has the market already priced in perfection? The backbone of Palantir's recent success is its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which is rapidly transforming into the company's biggest commercial catalyst. U.S. commercial revenues skyrocketed 71% year over year and 19% sequentially in the first quarter of 2025, pushing the annual run rate past the $1 billion mark for the first time. Total contract value in this segment skyrocketed 239% YoY, with deal sizes proliferating, more than double the number of $1 million contracts closed compared to last year. The rising popularity of AIP bootcamps — short, targeted training sessions for enterprise AI deployment — is a major driver. These bootcamps reduce implementation timelines and showcase AIP's plug-and-play value, helping customers scale AI operations faster than ever. Palantir's flexible, modular sales model allows clients to start small with specific components, further lowering adoption friction. Combined with usage-based pricing, this strategy has broadened Palantir's reach in the U.S. commercial sector, making AI integration more accessible and scalable for new clients. As of March 31, 2025, Palantir boasted $5.4 billion in cash and no debt. This fortress balance sheet gives the company strategic flexibility to reinvest in growth without external financing pressures. Revenue growth remains robust—first quarter sales soared 39.3% YoY. Deal momentum is equally encouraging with Palantir closing 139 deals of at least $1 million, 51 deals of at least $5 million and 31 deals of at least $10 million in the quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2025 EPS stands at 14 cents, up 55.6% from a year ago. Full-year earnings are projected to grow 44% in 2025 and 25% in 2026. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Sales estimates are equally bullish, with 38% expected growth in the second quarter and full-year top-line increases of 37% and 28% for 2025 and 2026, respectively. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Despite its strong fundamentals, PLTR's valuation is hard to ignore. Its forward P/E ratio of 197 dwarfs the industry average of 40. This lofty premium reflects high expectations around future AI monetization and government contracts. While the growth story is compelling, the stock is priced for near-flawless execution, leaving minimal margin for error. Such a valuation exposes the stock to heightened volatility, especially if earnings or guidance falter in any quarter. Investors must weigh long-term promise against short-term risk. Palantir is proving itself as a real contender in AI-powered enterprise solutions. It has the momentum, the product-market fit, and the financial strength to keep growing. But the current price likely already reflects much of this optimism. While long-term investors should hold onto their positions, chasing the stock at these levels could prove risky. A better entry point may emerge after a pullback and valuation reset. PLTR currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Oracle Corporation (ORCL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

3 Top AI Stocks to Buy in June 2025
3 Top AI Stocks to Buy in June 2025

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3 Top AI Stocks to Buy in June 2025

Nvidia continues to dominate the AI market with cutting-edge chips, a robust software ecosystem, and advanced networking technologies. Broadcom has emerged as a prominent player in AI infrastructure, leveraging its custom AI chips and VMware software stack. CoreWeave is seeing explosive growth with Nvidia's backing. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › The U.S. equity market made a strong recovery in May 2025, fueled by robust earnings, decreasing trade tensions, and rising investor confidence in the U.S. economy -- a significant improvement compared to the market's performance in April 2025. Now, Deutsche Bank analysts have raised the target for the benchmark S&P 500 index from 6,150 to 6,550 by the end of 2025. Given this renewed market optimism, artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are poised to be key beneficiaries of the next wave of capital inflows. Long-term investors can benefit from this trend by investing in these high-quality, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered companies that offer significant growth potential in the evolving market landscape. June is a good time to take a closer look at these three top AI stocks. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has reported stellar results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended April 27, 2025). The company reported revenue of $44.1 billion, representing a 69% year-over-year increase. Nvidia also generated a solid $26 billion in free cash flow. Nvidia currently accounts for nearly 80% of the AI accelerator market. While a dominant presence in AI training workloads, the company is also focused on inference (real-time deployment of pre-trained models) workloads. The company is at the forefront of handling reasoning workloads (computationally intense and complex inference workloads) with its Blackwell architecture systems. Major cloud providers are already deploying these chips at a massive scale -- almost 72,000 GPUs weekly -- and plan to ramp up even more in the coming quarter. Hence, Blackwell is powering the next phase of AI where technology is thinking longer, solving problems, and giving better answers than just responding with pre-written answers. Besides hardware leadership, Nvidia's robust software ecosystem has ensured developer lock-in and a sticky customer base. With the CUDA parallel programming platform, TensorRT for deployment, and NIM microservices for inference, clients find it extremely costly and time-consuming to switch to competitors. The company has also built a healthy networking business, with this segment's revenue growing 64% quarter over quarter to $5 billion in the first quarter. Thanks to the technological superiority of its comprehensive ecosystem, Nvidia managed to provide a healthy outlook for fiscal 2026's Q2, despite its revenue being negatively affected by nearly $8 billion due to export restrictions for the Chinese market. Nvidia stock trades at 31.8 times forward earnings, which is not a particularly cheap valuation. But considering its growth trajectory and competitive advantages, Nvidia is a smart AI pick now, even at elevated valuation levels. Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) has emerged as a prominent AI infrastructure player in 2025. The company's custom AI chips and networking solutions are being increasingly used by three prominent hyperscaler clients -- rumored to be Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Chinese company ByteDance -- to optimize the execution of their specific workloads. CEO Hock Tan expects the three hyperscalers to generate a serviceable addressable market (SAM) of $60 billion to $90 billion in fiscal 2027. Additionally, the company is engaging with four additional hyperscalers to develop custom chips, underscoring the even larger market potential. Beyond custom chips, Broadcom is building the critical networking infrastructure that enables the training and deployment of large and powerful frontier AI models. The company's recent $69 billion acquisition of VMware positioned it as a key player in the enterprise software and hybrid cloud infrastructure space. With VMware's cloud orchestration and virtualization technologies, Broadcom can offer full-stack AI infrastructure solutions to its clients. Broadcom stock currently trades at 37.8 times forward earnings. However, considering its critical role in building global AI infrastructure, the company is an excellent pick, despite the rich valuation. Previously a cryptocurrency mining operator, CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) has now positioned itself as a prominent "AI Hyperscaler." Unlike traditional hyperscalers such as Amazon's AWS, Microsoft's Azure, or Alphabet's Google Cloud Platform, which are primarily designed for general-purpose applications, CoreWeave's cloud infrastructure has been specifically designed for AI and machine-learning workloads. The company has established an extensive network of 33 purpose-built AI data centers across the United States and Europe. Solid demand for CoreWeave's specialized AI-first cloud infrastructure is directly driving its exceptional financial performance. The company reported $982 million in revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, up 420% year over year. At the same time, the company's adjusted operating income rose 550% year over year to $163 million. This highlights that the company is on its way to becoming profitable, despite the high level of capital expenditures typical in the AI data center business. The company had a massive $25.9 billion revenue backlog from multi-year contracts at end of the first quarter. CoreWeave's strategic partnership with Nvidia is proving to be a significant competitive advantage. The deep relationship has given the company preferential access to Nvidia's cutting-edge GPUs and advanced networking technologies. With Nvidia having more than a $2.5 billion equity stake in CoreWeave (at current prices), the latter is practically assured of continued access to next-generation GPUs in the coming years. CoreWeave stock currently trades at 37.5 times sales, which seems quite rich. However, the elevated valuation is justified considering the company's huge addressable market, robust contract backlog, and impressive financial performance, making it a buy now. Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Manali Pradhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Top AI Stocks to Buy in June 2025 was originally published by The Motley Fool

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