CEOs take a break from the main decisions at a time of uncertainty

Welcome to the big break.

From small businesses to giants like Morgan Stanley, some CEOs reach the word “break” as a term of the moment.

It is hardly surprising to see him make a C-Suite shine.

The word received a star treatment earlier this month when President Donald Trump announced a 90-day interruption for certain prices. His declaration of April 9 in a social article of truth presented a “break” entirely of capitalizations as an operating word. It was enough to send bankrupt stock markets to their best day for years after a series of steep losses.

Now, in addition to using it as a short -sized partial price, some CEOs seem to offer the word like a balm – a mixture of prudence and veins of hope that the uncertainty of grinding on the benefits of the prices will not last too long.

Keith Lambert, CEO of oxidant, a company near Los Angeles which provides equipment and pollution control services to industrial sites in the United States, told Business Insider that because of the unknowns on the impact of prices, its company and many customers of the company felt obligated to be attractive.

For oxidants, which, according to Lambert, made more than $ 20 million sales in 2024, and some customers, vigilance means not to move too aggressively in areas like hiring, he said.

“Right now, it’s just this pregnant break of” OK, wait, let’s see “, said Lambert.

For many companies, the unpredictability concerning the economic price of commercial obstacles can paralyze decision -making, Joe Galvin, the research director of the Vistage Coaching Company, previously told Bi.

The choices that could be easier – and do not require stop time – are those that reduce the risk.

Catalynt Solutions, a company near Seattle which distributes and manufactures chemicals used in carbonated drinks to paint, holds capital spending projects and certain investments in technology and services due to uncertainty on prices, said CEO Megan Gluth in BI.

“We are just taking a break on the signing of all these contracts at the moment because we simply do not know,” she said, referring to the impact of prices. Catalynt carried out $ 91 million in sales in 2024, said the company.

“Pause against deleting”

As unwelcome as it may be, CEOs could say much worse than the word P.

Ted Pick, who directs Morgan Stanley, told investors on April 11 that, although uncertainty and oscillations on the financial markets have slowed down certain rights of business passage such as the first public offers, the feeling around such transitions, for the moment, seems to have landed on “break against suppressing”.

As a verb or name, the break has become a clutch term for certain companies sailing troubled waters.

One day after Trump’s speech on April 2 Rose Garden detailing its intentions around samples, the industrial technology company Acuity said in a profits call with investors that it considered prices as “the equivalent of a supply shock”.

CEO Neil Ashe, discussing the lighting activities of Atlanta, also said in the appeal that acuity “would take a break” while it digests the prices.

In some cases, the word took the scene before Trump even announced the details of the prices.

BGSF, a personnel company in Plano, Texas, which operates through the United States, told investors in mid-March that it saw “many activities” in the company pipeline. CEO Beth Garte also declared in the call of the results that there had been a “slight break” in the hope which had followed the American presidential election but that, largely, “there is a careful optimism there”.

Greenfirst Forest Products, a Canadian wooden company, also said in an investor call in mid-March that it was prudent to “break certain elements” of its plans to study the impact of tariffs which are soon and saving the business report.

Slowly render with great decisions

One of the reasons why some companies could stop on the break by turning a sentence is that it is a simple way to transmit that they make a beat before making heavy decisions that could not appear with imprudence in a few months.

The re -evolution of supply lines, for example, is often difficult and expensive, so CEOs do not tend to make these calls overnight, said Erin McLaughlin, principal economist at the Conference Board, told Bi. Instead, she said, business leaders often make these decisions three to seven years in advance.

McLaughlin said that even with a three -month stopover at certain prices, many medium and large companies that make up non -profit members are still struggling with uncertainty – and some have decided to keep major decisions.

She said that many CEOs wanted to better understand “the why and the final game” of the prices. Knowing this, said McLaughlin, could allow companies to relieve themselves and resume “a normal decision -making paradigm”.

A lasting delay could become problematic.

The choice of Morgan Stanley said that if the adaptation to new economic conditions took too long, the appetite for the activity of companies such as mergers could fade where “the break effectively becomes a relay and that the books are put in place”.

For the moment, however, the term still does the work of Yeoman, including in relation to the agreement.

“I am of the opinion that we are still on a break. We do not know if the economy will contract,” said Pick during the investor call on April 11.