FDIC data shows that the banking sector is currently holding almost $500 billion in unrealized losses on investment securities.
In a stagflation scenario, the risk is that rates will be higher for longer and credit losses will begin to accumulate, in particular for lenders to tech, growth, and VC, where borrowers are characterized by having no earnings and low coverage ratios.
The inventory-to-sales ratio for retailers was 1.5 before the pandemic, and now it is 1.3, see chart below.
In other words, retailers will more quickly have empty shelves when goods no longer come in from China.
The US is no longer importing cheap goods from China. As a result, the rest of the world will likely see a significant increase in imports of cheap Chinese goods that China can no longer sell in the US.
This creates a highly unusual macroeconomic situation, with upward pressure on inflation in the US and downward pressure on inflation in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
The consequence for markets is that rates will be higher in the US and lower in the rest of the world.
Listen to Torsten Slok, Apollo’s Chief Economist, and Jim Vanek, Partner and Co-Head Global Performing Credit, discuss why demand for private credit is expected to remain strong as the need for direct, larger, and more flexible financing is sticky and likely to be reinforced by economic uncertainty.
The IMF just released their latest World Economic Outlook, and comparing their pre-tariff forecast from January with their forecast today shows that they expect the trade war to have a much bigger negative impact on the US economy than on other countries, including China, see chart below.
The trade war is all about goods. However, the US is also connected with China via sales of American products in China to Chinese consumers.
For example, McDonald’s has 6,820 restaurants in China, Walmart operates 364 stores in China, and Apple sold 43 million iPhones in China in 2024.
Calculations from FactSet’s Geographic Revenue Exposure Database show that China makes up about 7% of total annual revenue in S&P 500 companies. Comparing the magnitude of the trade deficit with the revenue generated by S&P 500 companies in China shows that US companies made $1.2 trillion in revenue selling to Chinese consumers—about four times more than the size of the trade deficit in goods between China and the US, see chart below.
The bottom line is that if the US has to decouple completely from China, it would result in a significant decline in earnings for S&P 500 companies no longer selling products to Chinese consumers.
After Liberation Day on April 2, earnings expectations for the S&P 500 have been revised down significantly, and interest rate differentials no longer drive the dollar, see charts below.
The Fed survey released this week shows how companies are responding to higher tariffs, and the first chart below shows that the top response is that companies are passing cost increases through to consumers.
The bottom line is that inflation will be rising significantly over the next six months, see also the second chart.
Estimates show that more than 90% of fireworks used in the United States are imported, and 95% of fireworks imported into the US come from China, see charts below.
Similarly, there are many different categories of products that are imported into the US where demand is inelastic, and China is the only provider of that product, see below.
The bottom line is that inflation will increase significantly for the product categories where China is the main producer of that good, likely including fireworks.
