04.03.25 Clark Reacts to Tariff Announcement-Stock Market Plunge

A special message from Clark today regarding the new tariffs and stock market reaction. Clark addresses the wide sense of alarm among investors, sharing his perspective and advice. Should investors act? First hear what Clark has to say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Wow, my phone's been lighting up all day, hearing from friends and family wanting to know, "What do we do? What do we do? Do we sell everything?" There's a certain panic in the air, and let's face it, Wall Street and foreign investment markets are having a nervous breakdown today. And there's a reason for that, that I've talked about, and that is tariffs are unbelievably disruptive and almost always lead to economic hardship in the country that imposes the tariffs,

• 0:40Speaker 00

  and in other countries, the trading partners that the tariffs are imposed on. But I want to say this to you: A tariff is clearly just a tax. And who pays that tax? Not the foreign country, not the business that's bringing stuff in from a foreign country. You and I pay the tax. And so what you're seeing on Wall Street, and today may be just a panic kind of day, and over time, you will see Wall Street analysts, investment analysts, lower their expectations for our economy and other economies.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  And we stand on the precipice of the danger of having what's known as stagflation, where we have both more inflation and lower economic activity. Now, whether it's going to be a recession or not, a lot of debate about that. The odds of a recession, 50/50 at this point. And long-term, there are significant consequences to the United States. And I know the President pitched this yesterday as being just a straight-out positive, and what a great thing, and "Look what we're doing to make America wealthy," and all that.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  And that's a perspective, but obviously economists and investment people overwhelmingly disagree.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  And the reasons are quite many, and I'm going to go in full on a podcast next week about that. But I want to tell you, do not panic sell your investment holdings. We've been through so many times. Think about September 11th, you think about the Great Recession. If you are older, or you studied this in school, the stock market crash of 1987, I think it was, when the market fell 40% in 48 hours. And each of

• 2:57Speaker 00

  the times that people panicked sold, they later regretted it. Because even though I believe tariffs are significantly harmful to us in the United States, in spite of those who believe that tariffs somehow make us better, don't get it. Businesses adapt. Businesses want to survive. And even if it means lower economic growth for us in the future, it doesn't mean that our economy goes and descends into darkness. So, no long term, being an owner of enterprises, remember, most of those enterprises are going

• 3:42Speaker 00

  to figure out how to adapt to these conditions, is important. And if you have a lot of speculative investments and all that, then you could suffer a lot. But if you're well diversified, let's say your money is mostly in a 401k plan at work, or Roth IRA, you're in a target retirement fund, you're already diversified. And if you're older, five years from retirement, you need to make sure that your portfolio accounts for the fact that you're going to need to have your money still grow in the future, deal with inflation, and at the same

• 4:23Speaker 00

  time, that you've lowered the risk of the mix of investments you have. Target Retirement Fund, again, is a good place for you to have your money to lower your risk as you're in the years approaching or in retirement. But panic selling? No way.