To our clients, partners, and colleagues –
Coming into 2025, the concerns of a new round of trade wars seemed to balance with the prospects of pro-growth fiscal and regulatory reforms. While tariffs and a reconfiguring of trade agreements were largely expected, the breadth, haphazard implementation, and subsequent global market reaction took many by surprise. Unless the Trump administration changes course or negotiations can bring us to a level of practicality, the near-term economic impact will almost certainly be negative. The announced 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs, ex-China, is a welcome first step toward de-escalation.
The market selloff following the tariff announcements of April 2 was indiscriminate and widespread, with a spike in trading volume suggesting panic was setting in. Among the many variables investors will continue to grapple with are the global response and progress on trade negotiations, the inflationary impact of tariffs, market sentiment and demand for U.S. investments, and, ultimately, the long-term economic impact. To say the least, there is a wide range of possible outcomes for markets over the next months.
Madison Investments is actively monitoring these developments in real-time. Our portfolio managers analyze and re-analyze every stock and credit as new tariff rates are announced to comprehensively understand the full impact on our investments.
Specific to our stock portfolios, we don’t invest in a business if we don’t fully understand the revenue dynamics (from both the U.S. and abroad) that drive its growth. Our companies have very strong competitive advantages and robust balance sheets, which help them weather downturns. While not immune to a broad selloff, we believe that companies with these traits, and the ability to invest in their businesses during downturns, will, over time, come out ahead. Where appropriate, we will make necessary adjustments to our valuation calculations.
The corollary to all this is that there are good opportunities to make new investments or to add to existing ones, so we’re spending equal amounts of time assessing that as well. We’ve found that in past downturns like this, the market doesn’t discriminate as much as it should.
Within fixed income, interest rates have moved violently, the yield curve has steepened, and credit spreads have widened as economic certainty has diminished. Madison Fixed Income and Reinhart Fixed Income portfolios have been positioned defensively for much of the past year given the tight spread environment and are poised to take advantage of the repricing in the credit markets selectively, where it makes sense for our client portfolios. Independent credit research and active risk management remain as crucial as ever as we anticipate more rate and spread volatility with each economic data print and tariff headline.
We expect the heightened market volatility to continue. That said, we remain focused on long-term fundamentals and will take advantage of volatility where appropriate to further reinforce the quality and return potential of our portfolios. Long-term, we continue to have a high degree of confidence that investments in quality businesses will result in substantial wealth creation for investors.
At Madison Investments, our investment teams continue to monitor these risks and we remain personally invested alongside our clients.
Madison Investments