As companies grow cautious about investment with President Trump moving forward with tariffs and the Federal Reserve slowing the pace of rate cuts, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported that its optimism index fell 2.3 points to 102.8 last month. Seven of the 10 index components decreased, led by the steepest monthly decline in capital spending plans since 1995. The index’s uncertainty indicator jumped 14 points, the biggest jump since 1986. The net percentage of owners expecting the economy to improve fell five points from December to a net 47%. The report comes as Citadel CEO Ken Griffin warned President Trump that his “bombastic rhetoric” on trade has “already done” a lot of “damage.” Griffin asserted that Trump’s handling of trade issues “makes it difficult for multinationals, in particular, to think about how to plan for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, particularly when it comes to long lead time capital investments that could be adversely impacted by a degradation of the current terms of engagement amongst the leading Western countries when it comes to terms and trade.”
