Deals Are the First Casualties of the Trade War: Paul J. Davies

Pause or delete? That is the question for investment bank clients looking at doing deals or taking companies public. Morgan Stanley’s Chief Executive Officer Ted Pick still thinks that the backed-up pipeline of activity Wall Street has had for months should still get done eventually. But in truth, the message from three big US banks that reported first-quarter results on Friday was: Nobody has a clue what the effects of President Trump’s trade war are going to be, only that the longer the uncertainty goes on, the worse it will get.

Big swings in markets in the first three months of the year ...