President Donald Trump's new tariffs and the ensuing volatility in the stock market has had the legacy media freaking out for weeks, predicting a possible recession. In fact, it has become difficult to tell whether the media freakout is causing the market freakout, or vice versa. Either way, none of it seems to be warranted so far. In fact, days ago Chevron CEO Mike Wirth went on one of those legacy media outlets, CNBC, and dumped a bucket of cold water on all the r-word talk. "There's no signs that we see at this point that we are in or close to a recession," said Wirth. "There are signs that growth may be slowing, and we have to always be prepared for that."
Wirth's comments are backed up by solid underlying fundamentals in the economy, including low unemployment and positive earnings reports. He explained that business leaders tend to look at broader trends over several months, rather than react to short-term volatility or news cycles.
Likewise, investment strategist Anastasia Amoroso told Fox Business that most of the initial freakout over tariffs was an overreaction. "The recession fears were actually self-induced," she said. "Market participants, in a rush, had to price in a recession (based on the tariffs Trump initially announced), but now we don't have the tariffs we did before (most have been paused or delayed) and we might actually be rolling back some of the China tariffs."
"That's why I think just as the fear appeared in the markets, it has been taken back."
Nevertheless, as long as Trump is pushing the t-word, expect most of the legacy media to continue pushing the r-word.
Photo: AFP