Good morning! Yesterday wrapped up another wild day for the markets, with the Nasdaq blowing its biggest intraday gain since at least 1982 (opening up 4% only to reverse and close down 2.2%) after Trump hit China with 104% tariffs. Goldman says the bear market could be short-lived, while Bessent believes China made a mistake retaliating.

A new study found that taking a personal finance class in high school could be worth $100k over a student’s lifetime. Jamie Dimon told employees to stop texting and emailing during meetings, and Larry Fink warned NYC to get crime under control or risk more firms leaving.

Plus: Elon called the White House’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Apple’s four-day slide pushed Microsoft back to the top as the world’s most valuable company, and Ray Dalio’s best advice for success.

Mosaic’s AI analyst can turn your MD’s modeling comments. See it in action today.

_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

Trade War Hitting Deals

Over the past week, President Trump’s tariff announcement, which imposed some of the steepest U.S. levies in a century, vaporized billions in mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs. With markets spiraling, pipelines are freezing, and your bonus pool looking like it’s on life support, 2025 is not looking like the dealmaking renaissance that dealmakers were hoping for. 

IPOs have collapsed over the past couple of weeks, with StubHub, Klarna, MNTN, Chime, and Ategrity all slamming the brakes on their public debuts.

An IPO executive says that, with volatility being too high, there won’t be any roadshows for at least two weeks. For bankers, deals are on pause while CFOs navigate an uncertain environment.

It’s not just IPOs on pause, M&A is getting smoked too. Saint-Gobain walked away from a $2.8 billion sale, and KKR pulled out of on Gerresheimer’s over $2 billion auction.

And even “done” deals are falling apart, with every deal on Wall Street now being re-traded or walked away from completely. Investors who banked on easy exits are now realizing that valuation assumptions are falling apart, and the debt used to fuel buyouts is drying up fast.

With global M&A already coming into 2025 down 13% to $436.56 billion, bankers were hoping that a Trump reelection would mean deregulation and a flood of deals. Instead, they got hit with tariffs and a stock market correction.

For bankers, fewer deals and harder financing are going to lead to longer timelines. A shrinking fee pool and clogged IPO pipeline means that M&A processes will drag out, and private equity firms will think twice before pulling the trigger on anything that isn't a lock. And for investors, a trade war could throw a wrench into everything from exit strategies to portfolio valuations.

Takeaway: Dealmakers hoped that 2025 would be the comeback year and the “Golden Age of Dealmaking” but Trump’s tariffs just put both public and private markets into survival mode. With some investment banks reportedly gearing up to slash headcount, it could be a bumpy road ahead. But, until then, here’s to hoping the tariffs usher in some unexpected work-life balance!

_{PRESENTED BY MOSAIC}

An AI Analyst Can Now Turn Your MD’s Comments Into Action

Imagine a world where you can just forward your MD’s email to an analyst and they take care of everything.

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• White House says 104% China tariffs take effect at midnight (Fox)

• Trump claims nations “kissing my ass” to negotiate tariffs (CNN)

• Goldman says any bear market could be short-lived (WSJ)

• Tech semiconductor stocks bounce on tariff optimism (CNBC)

• Bessent says China’s escalation was a big mistake (CNBC)

• Taking a personal finance class in high school has an $100k lifetime benefit (CNBC)

• Jamie Dimon urges employees to stop reading texts, emails during meetings (Times)

• Apple’s four-day slide puts Microsoft back as world’s most valuable company (CNBC)

• Larry Fink to New York - fix crime, filth or lose more firms (NYP)

• 8 charts show dramatic fallout from Trump’s liberation day (YF)

• Elon Musk labels Trump adviser Navarro 'moron' over Tesla comment (BBC)

• Utah Jazz owner forms $1 billion venture capital fund (Axios)

• Don’t panic about your 401(k) amid market turbulence (Axios)

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Tariffs Escalate, Markets Slide, Inflation Looms

Equities Drop Amid Tariff Escalation: U.S. markets closed lower as a new 50% U.S. tariff on Chinese imports—bringing the total to 104%—counters China’s 34% retaliatory tariffs. The S&P 500 fell 1.6%, down 19% from its February 19 high.

Energy and materials sectors tanked, while utilities held up. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped to 97.4 in March, below the long-term average of 98, showing policy uncertainty hitting small businesses. Bond yields rose, with the 10-year Treasury at 4.28%.

Volatility Is Normal, Stay Diversified: The S&P 500 is nearing a 20% decline from its high. Historically, after such drops, returns average +4.1% in 1 month, +0.7% in 6 months, and +10.5% in 12 months.

Inflation Watch: March CPI data, due Thursday, is expected to show headline CPI at 2.6% and core CPI at 3%, both down from prior readings.

The 10-year breakeven inflation rate at 2.2% suggests long-term expectations are anchored. Growth risks from tariffs may outweigh inflation risks, giving the Fed room to cut rates if growth slows.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Humana ($HUM) +11% because of a boost to Medicare reimbursement rates.

• (–) Apple ($AAPL) -5% after the market rally faded; Trump admin confirms China tariffs.

• (–) Tilray Brands ($TLRY) -21% after the cannabis company missed quarterly revenue.

Private Dealmaking

• Ripple, a crypto company, bought Hidden Road for $1.25 billion

• Krea, a genAI platform, raised $83 million

• Sipay, an online payments startup, raised $78 million

• Blackbird Labs, a blockchain startup for restaurants, raised $50 million

• NexGen Cloud, an AI infrastructure startup, raised $45 million

• Scapia, a travel fintech, raised $40 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

High Conflict

That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people.

High conflict, by contrast, is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side.

New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free.

Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to find himself working beside the man who killed his childhood idol.

Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better.

All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries.

But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into something good, something that made them better people. They rehumanized and recatego­rized their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even as they continued to fight for what they knew was right.

“When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over.”

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Money Market Funds Booming

_{PRESENTED BY KNOPMAN MARKS}

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_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Brain Rot

Social media’s grip is rotting brains—“brain rot”, Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year, describes mental decline from overconsuming trivial online content.

Students report spending hours on short videos, procrastinating, unable to focus on longer tasks like a 2:40 video (cut to 16-second clips to hold attention).

U.S. youth average 5+ hours daily on screens, facing 237 notifications—one every 4 minutes—fueling unrealistic comparisons, toxic masculinity, and polarization.

This erodes deep thought, storytelling, and cultural memory, as platforms prioritize ephemeral, profit-driven content over meaningful narratives.

Truth and trust suffer, amplifying misinformation and “hate and extremism,” threatening democracy.

Thoreau’s 1854 warning of “brain-rot” feels prophetic in a world led by figures like Trump, who disregard facts entirely.

The issue isn’t just tech—it’s the consumer-capitalist-digital complex eroding culture. We’re storysellers, not storytellers, and it’s killing our ability to understand ourselves.

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• Ray Dalio’s best advice for success

• Is being disagreeable the secret to attaining leadership roles?

• If you’re known for these 5 habits, your leadership skills are off the chart

• The hardest leadership skill you’ll ever learn

• 9 tourist traps that are worth the trip

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day