Thursday Apr. 3, 2025 - The case for tariffs
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Here is Professional Money Manager, Bill Gunderson.

And welcome to the Thursday, Do You Feel Liberated Day? This is the Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I'm here with Jeff Webster, our vice president here at Gunderson Capital. And I've been through many days like today. I've seen a lot worse than today.

And I would just tell everybody, I would advise everybody to just stay calm. Even though the Dow is down 1,428 points, boy, those headlines are going to sell newspapers and get clicks today. Remember, that's what the media business is all about, scaring you to death and then getting you to click on things. Clicks equal money. NASDAQ down 849, 4.82%, despite semiconductors being exempt.

from tariffs but it's a lot of cross currents right now obviously it'll work out the doubt the S&P is down 211 3.7 percent the Russell 2000 small caps down 4.5 percent you're going to see a lot of supply chain disruption I would think amongst those small caps the good news is Trump's been really good for the bond market

Really bad for the stock market so far. The 10-year is down to 4.05%, and gold is down just a little bit here. Silver is getting hit pretty hard because it is an industrial metal. So welcome to today's Best Stocks Now show. Jeff, we said we'd wake up to a whole different world on Thursday, and I suppose you can make the statement that...

The tariffs were worse than what the market was expecting because if you look at yesterday, we actually had an up day in the market yesterday. It was pretty optimistic. It closed at the high of the day. And then at 4 p.m., a little thereafter, they met in the Rose Garden.

And the whole cabinet was there. And before it was over, let's see here. I'm going to go through some of these. China was hit with the 34% tariff. Taiwan, 32%. Thailand, 36%. Cambodia, 49%.

Bangladesh, I'm sure we get a lot of stuff from Bangladesh, 37%. How about Sri Lanka at 44% tariff? Madagascar, what are they doing? 47%. Well...

We get our vanilla from them. Okay. Price of vanilla going up. That's okay. I like chocolate milkshakes. But here's the deal. These countries are charging us double what we're charging them. As far as I know, if you take Trump at his word, he looked at what they're charging us, which, yes, tariff charge to the U.S. So, for instance...

Madagascar is charging us a 93% tariff. Now, I get a lot of Mexican vanilla myself. That's a lot cheaper. So we're going to charge them one half. Is turnabout fair play? I mean, if Burma is going to charge us 88%, is it not fair for us to charge them 44%? Or Serbia charging us 74%?

We're going to charge them just 37. Laos is charging us 95%. So we're going to charge them 48%. Well, let's not forget, this is the opening salvo also. We have to remember that. And at some point, the negotiations will begin. But as far as I know, the phone lines are not even open right now for negotiations. So, you know, it's been my experience in the market.

If you want to sell newspapers, in the old days when we had newspapers, the little newsboy would yell out and hold up the paper with this big headline and an exclamation point, and they'd sell a lot of newspapers. And I feel like with this tariff thing, and okay, if the media outlet doesn't like Trump, which there's plenty of those,

If you don't like Trump, you know, whatever, you're going to probably buy those headlines and you're going to click on everything that talks about the end of the world because of the new tariff war that is now underway. The shot has been fired. And will it create a war, a war, a tariff war? Or will everybody come to the bargaining table? I kind of use. Yeah, go ahead, Jeff.

I was going to say, so the way I'm reading this is we have the various tariffs. To some extent, Trump is putting the ball in their court saying, all right, you know, instead of an 80% tariff on U.S. goods coming into our country, we're willing to drop that to China.

some other percentage. And then Trump, in turn, his administration would adjust the tariff. He would lower it. Yes, exactly. You lower your tariff, we'll lower our tariff. Now, the disruption. It depends. You have to take it company by company.

You have to take it supply chain by supply chain. If you're a company that gets all your stuff, most of your ingredients from Minimar, you're going to have to find someone else to get your ingredients from, hopefully from somebody in Philadelphia, if you can find those ingredients. So

You know, the analogy I use in a situation like this, around the holidays, we shake up those little things with all the snowflakes inside, the glitter, and it's all turbulent. Yeah, it's in turmoil for about a minute or two, and then it all settles. And I would just say, talk to me in a week from now, talk to me a month from now, but right now, it's the end of the world, and

Everything is in turmoil and people are running for the exits. Oh my gosh, this is it. I've got to get out. I've seen a lot worse things hit the market than this. So that's just my perspective on all of this.

For me, hitting the World Trade Center was a lot worse than this. We were under attack from a foreign adversary, and we had no idea if they had other things planned. The market recovered and came back from that, and I've seen other things. Our whole financial system was about to come down in 2008, 2009, and

And it was the end of the world then. And we came back from that. For me, this is not even close to those two events. And, you know, the market was pretty encouraged yesterday. It didn't get what it wanted afterwards. It wanted very soft shoe treatment. But I think, you know, going country by country and saying, here's what you charge us. Here's what we're going to charge you. Now, on the other hand,

It is a bold move. Okay, Trump's presidency really hangs on this. And not just his presidency, but who will occupy that office four years from now? I mean, will it be Shapiro from Pennsylvania or...

Another leading Democrat or will the GOP, will this be a move that brings jobs back to America, brings wealth back to America, you know, cranks up our factories once again to America? I've certainly heard plenty of people complain over the years about all of the jobs that have left here. I mean, just talk to an auto worker in Michigan.

or a steel worker in Pennsylvania. And, I mean, Trump is trying to reverse that, okay? He's making a very bold move and using the leverage that the U.S. has. You've got to think about it from their perspective.

How badly? I mean, we got bad information on Vietnam. We thought Vietnam was going to get unscathed. But I think they'll settle things very quickly because they want to be part. In fact, a lot of the manufacturing has moved from China to Vietnam. So I think Vietnam is going to come around very, very quickly and work things out.

You've got to look at it from their perspective. I'm Vietnam, and I've got all of these lucrative contracts to build these materials for trading partners around especially the U.S. market. How valuable is the U.S. market to Mexico, for instance? How valuable is the U.S. market to Myanmar? How valuable is the U.S. market to Laos? All of these people have 98% tariffs on us.

And we're saying we're going to charge you 49% unless you're willing to negotiate. He must have a team of negotiators. I mean, the phone is going to ring off the hook in all these different languages too, Jeff. People calling in from all over the world. We want to talk to the Burma trade negotiator.

So that's where we sit right now. There's the salvo. The salvo is always the worst part of it all. I think things will settle out just like the little glitter eventually settles out in the snow globes. We've got a lot to talk about here in today's Best Stocks Now show. We'll be right back. ♪♪♪

And welcome back here to the second quarter of today's Best Docs Now show. Another analogy I would use here, Jeff, my eyes were really opened, and I think America's eyes were really opened.

When Doge went into, for instance, USAID, how many times did your jaw drop and how many times did your fist hit the table when you heard where that check you send or that money that's taken out of your paycheck every week or every other week

What that money was going to and all the different things it was going to. I mean, I got an education. I had no idea. You know, our government, I've always been an advocate of a quarterly income statement. Just like a company, a publicly traded company...

which isn't using sacred tax dollars. They've got to report every quarter where the money went, how much came in, etc. We've always just kind of had this black hole, and that's all we know is we're spending $2 trillion more every year than we're taking in and not knowing where it's going. So for me, it was a real eye-opener. Okay, now let's fast forward.

Tariffs charged to the USA. Now, he's including currency manipulation. I don't know how they factor that in. And trade barriers. What does currency manipulation actually mean? You know what? There's ways of manipulating. The central banks can manipulate currencies in their favor.

And China has been a big violator of this. But having said that, they also charge heavy tariffs. So let's just go down this list. China is 67% charging us. We're going to charge them 34%. The European Union is 39%, almost 40% tariffs on U.S. goods. We're going to charge them 20%.

I don't know who Vietnam thinks they are. They're charging 90%. Now, see, I didn't realize this. This is an eye-opener to me. And at first blush here, it seems fair to me to turn around and say, okay, European Union, you're charging us 40%. We're going to charge you 20%. I mean, you could make the argument that that's a bargain. Taiwan is charging us 64%. Japan...

46%. India is charging us 52%. South Korea, 50%. So if you say you're against tariffs, okay, you're out there saying, well, I don't think tariffs are right. But do you think it's right for them to be charging us tariffs? Okay. If you're against tariffs, you should be against China and South Korea charging us tariffs, right?

Well, their economy has become very, very dependent on the funds that are coming in from those tariffs. Well, yeah, absolutely. They're running their government, and you kind of wonder, maybe Doge needs to go look at some of those guys to see where that money is going. How much they're collecting. Well, okay, and I mean, where would they be without Americans buying their goods? Okay, now, the other thing I would just say is,

I don't know what. So we're all for the UAW and workers' benefits and safe working environment and retirement plans and all this and that. I wonder what the factories in India or China building Apple phones. Apple's down 9%, 8%. I wonder what the factories in Vietnam are.

I mean, do you think there might be any child labor? We know that the Uyghur Muslims were building solar panels up there in the north of China. I don't imagine the working conditions are all that great in Cambodia, who's charging us 97%, or Bangladesh 74%. Yet, we're okay with offshoring people.

manufacturing to these countries and just kind of looking the other way at what the working conditions might be over there. So there are two sides to this story.

And it was a real, now, okay, let's get down, hey, God bless Uzbekistan. They only charge 10% in tariffs. French Polynesia, you get any clothes from there lately, shoes or anything? 10%. Cayman Islands, 10%. My macadamia nuts come from Tahiti, I guess. Okay, I guess. You know, Bermuda's only charging us 10%.

For those shorts? That's where my shorts have gone up, I guess. Yeah, so we're going to only charge them 10%. That sounds fair to me, okay? Libya's charging 61%, Samoa charges 10%. All right, so there's the other side of the story.

And, you know, if you want this, this is on the government website, reciprocal tariffs. And they have listed very cleanly and very easy to read in bold letters, no fine print. Here's what this country is charging us. And here's what we're going to charge them. And this is the opening salvo. Now, Scott Besson.

who is our Treasury Secretary from our little town here where we live in Charleston, South Carolina. He said it before, he lives in the biggest house out there, the big pink house out on the peninsula in downtown Charleston. He advises countries not to retaliate.

to the Trump tariffs, world leaders are responding. Okay, China firmly opposes the new U.S. tariffs and vows retaliation. But then again, you know, we have to say, China, you're charging us 64 and we're only charging you 32. Let's even the playing field here. China has strongly condemned the new tariffs. Now I think of a company like, let's think about Apple for a minute.

What did Apple do? I don't know where they were manufacturing their phones originally when they first started the iPhone, but they decided to offshore the manufacturing to China. And they used Foxconn, right, to offshore the manufacturing. And they're going to set up a manufacturing in India. And now, you know, they're going to bring those phones back to America and sell them to Americans, right?

You have to ask yourself, would they have been better off moving their manufacturing to South Dakota or Texas? Do we not have the labor? Do we not have the capabilities? Do we not have the smarts to build factories and create jobs here for Americans? I'm just saying this is the other side of this picture.

And what is the leader of Apple going to do? His stock is down 8%, 9%. And he realizes that all of that manufacturing that he offshored to China, particularly China, they've either got to negotiate lower tariff. China's either got to give and cave. Or he's got to get up and running real fast building these phones in America, Jeff.

Yeah, and then you ask yourself the question, what does that do to the cost of the phone? Right. We keep the price the same, but the cost goes up, so it impacts stock. Here's my argument. Who knows? Here's my argument against that. Those Huawei phones, which are being built 100% in China, they're the same price as an Apple phone.

So is the Chinese government gouging the public over there? I mean, obviously, they're not building them that much cheaper.

Could we come up with faster methods and better and more efficient methods here in the U.S., right? So anyways, like I say, Huawei phones, go look up a price. They're almost as much as an Apple phone. Well, when we come back, we'll talk about Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. We'll be right back. This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today's Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show.

I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GuntersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services, call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show. Instigator, because there's something

We've got to get to the point where we can get to the point where we can get to the point where we can get to the point

But my personal story is I recently bought an MTH, which is a competitor. That's Mike's Train House, competitor to Lionel. And it clearly says on the box, made in China. Okay. This thing weighs 24 pounds, this locomotive. It's a big boy. The steam comes out. It's synchronized with the chuffing. I mean, it takes you back to like a 50s movie, right?

I mean, there's just something about trains. Guess what? It's a basket case. It's a lemon. And I personally talked to the second man in charge at MTH. I said, this thing has been a nightmare. It shuts down, then it comes back on, shuts down. It fills my room with smoke. And he said, send it back. Okay, made in China. I've never had any problems before.

I think we get a lot of junk, right, from China, but we're willing to sacrifice the quality because of the price. So anyways, China firmly opposes. Now, let's go to Mexico, all right? Well, let's go to Canada first. Canada faces 25% levies on steel, aluminum, and automobiles, which I think we can produce here. I don't think we're dependent upon Canada, but Canada...

Needs us pretty badly, okay? So I think they'll come to some kind of a... Bill, here are the top five items that we import from Canada. Probably beer. Mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. What's number one? It's mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. Okay, yeah, because they're an oil-rich country. We have plenty of that ourself.

Yep, vehicles other than railway or tramway, machinery, including nuclear reactors and boilers. We got plenty of that. Electrical and electronic equipment and plastics and articles thereof. Yeah, well, they're going to place tariffs on Canadian beer and Canadian spirits.

So if I'm not mistaken, Coors from Golden, Colorado merged with Molson many years ago and is now one of the biggest brewers in the world. But it's actually headquartered in Canada. So I imagine it's going to be tariffed, unless it's still made in Golden, Colorado. And I guess the Canadian whiskeys, I'm not a drinker, but I have seen Canadian whiskey ads and whatnot. So I think we can get by without that.

Mexico says they are not going to impose counter tariffs and they will come up with a comprehensive program that will be released on Thursday. So you can see heavy movement there. I think Vietnam probably already has a comprehensive program when they got hit with that 90%. Taiwan

was hit with the 32%, but semiconductors are exempt from the tariffs. South Korea got hit with 25%. That's devastating to their automobile industry. Kia and Hyundai and other things that they make. Taiwan links tech stocks to watch. Taiwan semiconductor stocks.

Micron, ASX, but NVIDIA pretty much is free and clear. I see no impact on them. And Mexico's coming around. I had to stop at Walmart very quickly last night on my way to my young men's assignment working with the young men. And as I walked through, I looked mostly at the produce. I think that's where it's going to be hit the most often.

Avocados were 78 cents. Tomatoes, you know, this time of year. I mean, there's plums and a few peaches there. That's not coming from Georgia this time of year. It's coming from out of the country. And I got to believe that all of that stuff. There was fresh corn. I got my first ears of corn to put on the grill. That's probably from Mexico. I don't see a major impact now.

Now, if you're going to go into the hardware aisle of Walmart or the toys, okay, imagine the toys. Imagine the fishing equipment. You ever buy a fishing rod made in China, Jeff? I did a couple times. First fish that hit snapped it right in half, okay? Now, there's...

They're making them better, but still they're way inferior to some of the others. But I would imagine most of that stuff is made over there in China these days. So all of this comes into play. The opening salvo has been fired, and some companies are in big trouble. If they manufacture all their goods offshore,

How many people have we known over the years, Jeff, you and I, that fly all over the world? When I was in San Diego, we had maquiladoras all over the place in Mexico. Factories that had moved to Mexico, child labor, $6 an hour, no benefits, long hours, okay?

All of this has to be factored into your mind, okay? You have to get past the headlines from the media and look underneath the surface a little bit. The EU, what are they going to do? Well, they do not like Trump at all, and I guess most countries don't like Trump at all anymore. But they are indicating strong plans to counter U.S. tariffs,

If negotiations fail, but therein is the key word, negotiations. And, you know, the negotiations will begin. I mean, India's got to come around. If I'm not mistaken, Apple was moving their factories to India. So they weren't so, some of them, so they weren't so dependent upon China. I just got to wonder, I mean, with Taiwan Semiconductor building plants in Texas, you

And Mercedes-Benz building cars in Alabama and BMW building cars in South Carolina. I just got to wonder how many people are going to come back and open plants. You know, Trump's vision is...

Whether it pans out or not, I think there's a lot of merit to it. And we'll just have to see. Guess the number one imported product from India is to the U.S. Probably some kind of... Well, Range Rovers come from India. I know that. But I'm thinking maybe Spices or something like

that what is well 12.36 billion in precious stones and metal that's right yes i read that the jewelry companies are going to be in trouble because they import a lot from india i did read that and i don't know that the local products and they're exempt 11 billion exempt pharmaceutical products are exempt so we need to load up on drug stocks

You know, you're going to see. Here's the thing, Jeff. As I go through 800 charts today, I'm going to know immediately which ones are impacted by tariffs and which ones aren't. Right? Okay? Apple was the first stock I looked at today. I'm going in alphabetical order today. I kind of change it up every day just to make things interesting. And Apple was down 8%. And you just think about what Apple did. Okay? Okay?

I don't know if it was Jobs that did it or if it was Cook that did it, but they decided to use Foxconn and build their iPhones. And guess what? It wasn't long before China had their own version of the iPhone because they learned everything about iPhones, right? Everything that's in them because they're building them in China.

And, you know, I mean, that's how the counterfeiting has gone on. They've come up with their own version, and they're clobbering Apple sales with sales of their own phones in Huawei, which they did sell in the U.S. I remember going into a Best Buy and seeing the Huawei phone. I go, wow, that's a lot cheaper. Of course, that was the opening salvo. We're going to steal market share.

from you americans and from apple and i thought i don't know and then they found out there were spy things and we ran huawei out of town right okay here's another interesting story get listen to this tiktok is up for sale we know that guess who's bidding app loving is a bidder app which has been one of the greatest stocks of all time and amazon is a bidder

You know, Amazon is not a big enough monopoly yet, Jeff. They need TikTok, too. Right? Okay, what else? Fallout. Stellantis. They're in big trouble. They're going to pause their Canadian Windsor plant for two weeks due to tariffs. Volkswagen. Oh. I know they do build some here, but they're going to mull a price hike. Are you going to buy a Volkswagen and pay the...

Are their cars that much better? Are you going to pay the import tax on a Volkswagen? Well, when you think of Volkswagen, they own Audi. So I don't know if Audi is a very, very fine brand. We're going to find out where they're built. We'll be right back. You've got to go on a go. Do what you want to do. We're in the web.

And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Docs Now. So just a few more comments and observations here. You know, I'm going to be sending out a lot of observations throughout the day on X.

I come and go on X. I'm so busy during the day sometimes, Jeff, it's pretty hard to add X in too and share my observations with them. But I don't want to clutter up the subscriber's email with observations. I'm going to be looking at 700, 800 charts today.

I'm going to see a lot from that, and I'm going to put my observation. I've already put a few out there. You just go to X, set up an account, at Bill Gunderson. I'm not on Truth Social. I'm not on any of the others. I've always been on Twitter, which is now X. That still seems to be the one that most people use. Now, my first observation is this.

You know what all these countries are coming forward with as their side of the bargain is buying U.S. energy. I think it's going to be a big boon for the Halliburtons, the Baker, you know, and the others out there, the drillers, the Liberty Energies, etc.,

Because that's what Trump seems to be really using as a bargaining chip. It makes him mad. If you think about it, who are they buying their oil from now? Russia? Okay. That doesn't make sense. They should be buying it from us.

Not Russia and buying their oil from Iran or Venezuela. No, he wants them buying their oil. And Europe, what about Europe? Where do they buy their liquid natural gas and their oil? And, of course, you know, they bought it from Russia and have the big pipeline going through there. And how did that work out? Not very good. So I kind of see...

The energy sector, but you have to be, Baker Hughes, you have to be very selective there. I see that as being a big beneficiary. And as I look at stocks today, I'm going to see the ones that are pretty much immune. Okay, Ferrari, for instance, did you know that it cruises right around the turmoil? For some reason, Ferrari is totally immune today.

uh from from the tariffs pharmaceuticals are totally immune from the tariffs uh and they're going to be you know these pharmaceutical companies are going to be bringing their manufacturing because we found out during covid we kind of uh exposed the the supply chain right i mean we knew that

hey, they're dependent on this, and those factories are down in China because of COVID. So we know where those weak spots are in the supply chain. And I don't know that a whole lot's been done since COVID to firm up those supply chains and bring them back to America. But the tariffs will definitely do that, I'm sure. And so there's another beneficiary, I think, is the pharmaceuticals cleaning up their supply chains,

You know, and the funny thing is here, his hero, Trump's hero seems to be William McKinley. Now, it's not like his face is on Mount Rushmore, right? It's not like he's Abraham Lincoln or Washington. We don't get McKinley Day off, right?

Maybe we will. Maybe he'll declare that a President's Day, too. But McKinley was the guy. I'm going to read more about him. But obviously, he was not happy when they renamed Mount McKinley, which is the highest mountain in America. Didn't they rename that to Denali or something? Yeah. Indian, right? And that's one of the first things he did when he came back in was he renamed Denali.

Back to Mount McKinley, but McKinley, he actually brought Hawaii to America, Puerto Rico, Guam. I'm sure that has something to do with Trump, you know, looking at Greenland and the Panama Canal and Canada, etc. But McKinley also brought a lot of factories back to America, right?

and decades of work in Congress that culminated in the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which raised tariffs on most imported manufactured goods to around 50%. That's what McKinley did, and McKinley oversaw a period of American expansionism from the annexation of Hawaii

and also bringing back a lot of factories and businesses that had left and gone overseas at that time. Now, on the good side of things, initial jobless claims fall this past week. The jobs market is still strong, and you would think this move would make the jobs market even that much stronger for America. Government jobs were hit. We know that.

The trade and goods deficit narrowed slightly, but obviously that's one of Trump's big goals is to narrow that greatly, which would then show up in our GDP. And in the meantime, UBS is warning that it's the end of the world. Of course, they don't like Trump. They say that the tariffs could pose large risk to economic growth.

And then you've got to look at Walmart. You've got to look at Amazon. You've got to look at Costco. They're all down today. How much does Costco sell from overseas? I don't know about that. I don't know that there's all that much that Costco brings in, maybe some of the furniture and the TVs and stuff. Dick's Sporting Goods, I think they've got worries. I think Home Depot and Lowe's have worries as well.

Well, as I go through those 800 charts today, follow me on X. I'll be there all day with my observations. And, of course, in the newsletter this weekend. Well, we're out of time. That was a fast-moving hour. We woke up.

to a changed world which we do many times over the last twenty five years like i say the dow was thirty five hundred when i got into the business now it's over forty thousand and i've gone through many many many periods of time and and changes in the world etc along the way and i've always found that eventually things settle down they have a way of settling out that's the way markets work that's the way markets were designed

To get our four-week trial, especially during a time like this where I'm sure there's going to be some bargain hunters out there right now, go to GundersenCapital.com. We started our relative value fund at a good time just two days ago with all of this stuff down today.

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Have a great day, everybody.