By Mark Wilson, Goldman Sachs Managing Director and trader
Coming to the end of Q1 (a lots happened in 3 months), it seems entirely appropriate that the best performing European thematic pair on the week is our “Geopolitical Risk” factor, closely followed by our tariff pair of “EU Made-in-USA vs EU Tariff Exposed”. Through the week the same 3 topics have dominated all conversations: tariffs, the economic damage from ongoing policy uncertainty, and the possible slowdown in AI-spend.
On tariffs, certainty is likely as important for the market as level. April 2nd has the possibility of being a clearing event – but the worst outcome may be the absence of that... if uncertainty is drawn out further. As we learned from the auto tariff announcements this week, the information the market craves is: who’s impacted, by how much, and when? Judging by European auto OEM share price reactions post announcement, the clearing event in of itself is a positive – so lets hope for a degree of certainty, or a framing of downside risk, come April 2nd.
