On an upcoming episode of the Opening Bid podcast, Trump’s top economic adviser during his first term, Gary Cohn, suggested that whipsawing markets could use a dose of policy certainty.
“I would tell anyone who wants to understand what’s going on in markets … that markets thrive on predictability and they thrive on uncertainty,” Cohn, who is a former director of the National Economic Council and current IBM vice chair, told Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi.
“Ambiguity is the No. 1 enemy of a market,” Cohn continued. “When a company creates ambiguity in their earnings profile, in their growth profile, in their business model, the market will punish that stock. When politicians, legislators create ambiguity in the way that taxes are going to work, the way that capital gains are going to work, the way that they’re going impose tariffs, they create ambiguity to a market and the market as a whole reprices.”
Cohn didn’t say whether he thinks Trump’s trade policy would trigger an economic slowdown in the United States, but he said that he is hopeful stability eventually comes to US tariff policy.