After dropping steeply amid recession fears, U.S. stocks are just about where they were heading into the April 2nd, so-called Liberation Day when President Trump first announced surprisingly high tariffs on America's trading partners.

So what could be ahead and how should investors position their portfolios now?

I'm Alison Nathan and this is Goldman Sachs Exchanges.

Today I'm joined again by David Koston, our chief U.S. equity strategist in Goldman Sachs research,

and by Patty Raphael, global co-head of the third-party wealth management business in Goldman Sachs

asset management. They both recently presented at the RIA Professional Investor Forum,

where they spoke to some of the largest independent investment advisors in the country.

David, Patty, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for inviting us.

Super delighted to be here.

Thanks, Allison.

So, David, stocks are still down here to date, but as I just said, they are now back to pre-liberation day levels, even though

tariff policy and the impacts on the economy and companies are still very uncertain. So what do you

make of this recovery? Alison, the way I would characterize the performance of the equity market

in the last month has been

the great concern that shocked the market when the president announced the tariffs in the

so-called Liberation Day.

And the market quickly pivoted to the idea there's a really dire outcome, and the prospects

of recession were quite elevated as a result. And the surprise that happened

a week later on the 9th of April when the president delayed for about 90 days, the tariffs

gave a lot of portfolio managers the confidence that the off-ramp was there and that ultimately

the tariffs that had been discussed on the 2nd of April probably would not be implemented as originally proposed.

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