The Treasury Secretary says individual investors did not sell their stocks during the recent tariff induced decline.

Hmm…individual investors, meaning the amateurs. The Treasury Secretary said it was the institutional investors who panicked.

Hmmm…institutional investors, meaning professionals who invest on behalf of other people like banks, mutual funds, hedge funds, endowments, pension funds, and insurance companies. You know, those stupid people who are assumed to be trained and more knowledgeable than most individual investors.

Some of that knowledge was that tariffs are historically bad for the economy and therefore bad for stocks. They were more likely to preserve capital and wait for signs of an improving economy before getting back into the market.

It would be interesting to examine the Treasury Secretary’s trading activity during this period, said a friend of mine.