With a slew of important earnings coming up over the next few weeks, we're going to start getting a real sense of the negative impacts of the f-d up policy communication strategy out of "The Administration."
We're going to see more dialed back forward guidance, and meaningful impacts to bottom lines.
I think Amazon might soon find itself at the front lines of this discussion. Their earnings release, scheduled for May 1st, may kickstart that conversation. And I don't think it goes well.
How could it?
When D.C. can’t get its act together, Wall Street feels it.
I’ve seen it happen more times than I care to count: confusion out of the White House sets off a chain reaction that ripples all the way down to public company earnings—and right into your portfolio.
It starts with poor policy direction or, worse, unclear communication. When nobody really knows what the administration’s long-term plan is (or if there even is one), businesses get stuck. It’s not just annoying for executives—it’s paralyzing. You can’t confidently launch a new product line, expand into new regions, or hire that next wave of talent if you don’t know whether the economic ground under your feet is going to shift tomorrow.
Let’s say you’re running a global manufacturing business and tariff policy keeps changing—or, more likely, keeps threatening to change. One day there’s talk of new tariffs on Chinese steel. The next week, maybe it’s pulled back. Then someone from the administration contradicts that in an interview. What do you do?
You wait. You hit pause on procurement. You delay expansion. And eventually, if you’re a public company, you pull your earnings guidance altogether—or widen the range so much that it’s basically useless. Because how can you model your costs when you don’t know if you’re paying 0% or 20% more for key materials next quarter?
The market doesn’t love that.
When companies can’t issue clear forward guidance, investors take notice. It raises questions about reliability, about management’s confidence, and—ultimately—about the company’s ability to deliver consistent returns. Uncertainty like that gets priced in fast. Valuations drop. Volatility spikes. And once that seed of doubt is planted, even good news can get overshadowed.
Bottom line: Business hates uncertainty. Markets hate it even more. And when Washington sends mixed messages or flirts with policy shifts without following through, it gums up the works for everyone. Planning stalls, guidance weakens, and stock prices reflect the mess.
And then the consumer feels it.
And that won't be good for a company like Amazon where consumers are likely to dial back their spending.
So I got short Amazon today, heading into earnings and a presumptive lack of any meaningful forward guidance coming from the call.
Sean McLaughlin | Chief Options Strategist, All Star Charts
