Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said on Friday that he had been blinded by the scope of President Donald Trump’s radical rates – and joined other Wall Street Bigwigs by warning that a trade war could push the economy into recession.
“The American scanning price announcements have gone beyond everything I could have imagined during my 49 years of finance,” FINK told analysts at a conference call after a communication of results of the first quarter of BlackRock.
“It’s not Wall Street against Main Street. The slowdown in the market has an impact on the millions of pension savings for ordinary people. ”
Fink also expressed his concern about wider economic prospects, telling CNBC that he believes that the United States could already be in a recession.
“I think we are very close, if not a recession now,” he said on an appearance on “Squawk on the Street” by CNBC.
Trump’s decision on April 2 to impose the most serious prices in more than a century sparked a world sale.
The S&P 500 index has undergone its most steep two-day drop since the COVVI-19 market crash in March 2020, diving strongly on April 3 and 4.
While the president has moved to facilitate tensions with a 90 -day break on reciprocal rates on Wednesday, he maintained a firm position on China – imposing a 145% levy on Chinese imports and keeping tariffs of 10% on most other countries.
China retaliated early Friday morning by announcing that it increased its own tariffs on American imports to 125%.
Although Trump’s temporary price break can buy time, it didn’t do to mitigate the deeper concerns of investors, according to Fink.
“I think you will see, at all levels, just a slowdown until there is more certainty. And we now have 90 days on reciprocal prices – it means a longer and higher uncertainty. ”
Fink noted that the signs of a slowdown already surfaces, even if economic data, such as employment growth and retail expenses, remain relatively solid.
He suggested that consumer storage before prices could obscure the underlying fragility of demand.
“In the short term, we have an economy in danger,” he said.
Despite the short -term turbulence, Fink stressed that longer -term investment opportunities remain, such as the potential transformer of artificial intelligence and the growing demand for infrastructure.
He also suggested that investors could start to move capital to Europe while conditions in the United States remain volatile.
During a separate event from the New York economic club earlier in the week, Fink pointed out that many CEOs share its concern about the country’s economic management.
“Other CEOs also believe that the United States is probably in recession,” he said.
Blackrock’s latest quarterly results highlighted uncertainty.
The largest asset management company in the country declared a profit adjusted per share of $ 11.30 for the first quarter, exceeding analysts’ expectations of $ 10.14, according to LSEG.
However, revenues reached $ 5.28 billion, raising forecasts of $ 5.34 billion.
The company attracted 84 billion dollars in net entries for the quarter and closed March with nearly $ 11.6 dollars of assets under management.
Fink said that the increase in inflation and market volatility have led customers to park nearly $ 950 billion in cash in BlackRock, a record amount.
“This money will ultimately be deployed,” he said, “but for the moment, customers are waiting.”
Blackrock’s actions increased slightly early on Friday.
Friday, JPMorgan CEO Chase echoes the feelings of Fink on Friday, warning that the American economy is faced with a “considerable turbulence” of Trump threats to trigger a world trade war.
“The economy is confronted with considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and potential negatives of prices and” trade wars “, continuous sticky inflation, high budgetary deficits and prices of assets and volatility still quite high,” said Dimon.
