Don't Sell, Get Your Shopping List Ready: Ancora's Sowerby

President Donald Trump said his economic policies “will never change,” as his sweeping tariffs continued to wreak havoc on the global economy.

“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE. THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!” Trump posted Friday on social media.

Trump appeared emboldened by March jobs data that beat forecasts, with US nonfarm payrolls increasing 228,000 last month.

David Sowerby, managing director and portfolio manager at Ancora, offers his take on why investors should not retreat despite the massive selloff, and why he thinks the president will ultimately shift his view as markets continue to struggle. David speaks with Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.

In every corner of the financial markets, from stocks to bonds to commodities, investors are sending Donald Trump the same unmistakable message: The trade war he unleashed is threatening to set off a worldwide recession — and fast.

After China retaliated less than 48 hours after Trump rolled out his punitive tariffs, traders now are pricing in what increasingly looks like a negative-feedback loop as Trump indicates he’s not going to back down.

The grim signs continued to pile up on Friday, when even a significantly stronger-than-expected US jobs report did virtually nothing to dispel growing worries about the state of the global economy. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell deepened those concerns, saying the shift in trade policy is likely to fan inflation and slow the pace of growth.

The S&P 500 Index tumbled as much as 5.2%, putting it on pace for the steepest two-day slide since March 2020, when the pandemic sent the US into lockdown.

Stocks in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany have plunged 10% or more from their highs. Oil tumbled Friday by the most in nearly three years, before paring the drop, on speculation demand will slow. The cost to protect investment-grade debt against default surged by the most since the regional banking crisis of March 2023. Government bonds and the Japanese yen have rallied as investors rush into havens. And in the US, traders ramped up bets that the Fed will cut interest rates aggressively during the second half of the year to keep the economy from stalling.

“We are rapidly headed towards recession,” said Peter Tchir, head of macro strategies at Academy Securities. “The world was prepared for ‘reciprocal tariffs.’ Whatever the abomination that was launched at the Rose Garden was, it is a disaster — mostly for the US, but also for the global economy.”

The president’s decision Wednesday to slap tariffs on some 60 countries — including China and the European Union — marked a major pullback from the steady increase in globalization that has defined the world’s economy for the last several decades. Trump’s go-it-alone approach also has put him at odds with countries around the globe, raising the stakes for the US, which relies on investors and central banks to absorb an ever-rising supply of its debt.

Trump’s larger-than expected levies drove Wall Street strategists and economists to revise their outlooks, anticipating a shock that could upend an US economy that has surprised forecasters with its strength since the pandemic.

On Friday, traders ignored the type of news that would usually have set off a rally: The Labor Department’s figures showed hiring unexpectedly accelerated last month, with 228,000 new jobs added to payrolls.

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