Welcome to the Dividing Cafe, weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio

and dividends in your understanding of economic life.

Hello and welcome to the daily recap.

This is David Bonson, Chief Investment Officer Managing Partner at the Bonson Group, coming to myself today as it was the worst day in markets since 2020, the COVID moment of a global pandemic and worldwide shutdowns.

And we've had the worst day in markets today since then, led by the stunning announcements out of the Rose Garden yesterday afternoon, April 2nd.

I will be doing a full dividend cafe tomorrow Friday to thoroughly download,

debrief, and analyze what has been done and what the various ramifications are.

The Dow today was down almost 1,700 points, just a whisker

shy of down 4%. The S&P 500 was down almost 5%, and the NASDAQ down 6%. The peak to trough now in the

NASDAQ is getting basically a whisker away from bear market territory, S&P, not far behind.

So when you look at this carnage done in markets and where we go from here, a few things are on the table.

All options have to be considered.

Do all of these tariffs as they've been announced stay on?

Then a recession certainly ensues. There is virtually no doubt about that. Do the weeks ahead,

the days ahead, see backtrack waivers carve-outs? I quote here, the full modification authority reserved by the president,

which is what I've been predicting last week, that we would persist with ongoing uncertainty

as the president maintained the discretionary ability to intervene and carve out as he saw fit. In that particular scenario,

you may end up with less tariffs imposed, less taxes to the global economy, and yet have to

persist with more uncertainty, which would further reduce capital investment and business activity,

and I would argue very likely lead to a mid-year

mild recession, best-case scenario. Or perhaps a third option where an off-ramp is pursued

sooner than later. Under the Ben Stein pretense, that which can't happen won't happen.

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