Tariffs continue to dominate the news cycle.

It appears that the use of the U.S. economy as leverage to push countries to accept tariffs of 15 to 20 per cent to do business with the United States is the new normal. However, continuing to insist that someone other than the U.S. consumer ultimately pays the tariffs is simply incorrect.

The result is that the tariffs are acting like a value-added tax.

Given how the markets have recovered from the tariff-induced volatility of Q2 2025, asking how they will fare in the second half of 2025 may seem like a trick question. The markets have been incredibly resilient, weathering the tense conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, relentless attacks on the Federal Reserve’s independence and tariff-on, tariff-off policies.

You know the feeling you get when you look at our credit card statement. Well, governments may be getting that feeling too.

Why?

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), government debt is higher and rising faster in most global economies.

We are past the halfway mark for 2025. It’s been… interesting. We’ve witnessed the continuing possibility of a global trade war, more-than-usual tension in the Middle East, and a global re-alignment of economic and political alliances, thanks to U.S. trade policy. Stock markets fell and rose like the tides over the last few weeks. Given all this, it’s no wonder people are still nervous and anxious. But, there are some positives.

Everyone remembers this line from James Cameron’s iconic 1984 movie, The Terminator: “I’ll be back.” Well, reciprocal tariffs are coming back like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s time-travelling cyborg. President Trump paused tariff implementation by 90 days and that period ends Tuesday, July 8, 2025. Analysts are expecting some measure of tariffs to be reinstated on some 180 United States (U.S.) trading partners.

Technological advances have made producing everything from light to tables to computers faster and cheaper. What underpins all of this, though, is the access to energy. Energy production and storage is central to our modern economy, sure, but it’s also central to how our civilisation advances.

Yet, despite advances in renewable energies, fossil fuels still make the world go round.

Wayne participated in his sixth Ride to Conquer Cancer over last weekend. This two-day bicycle ride, a 200-kilometre-plus event, is a major fundraising intitiative for Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. For the unprepared, there are long straight sections, sections with curves, and sections with hills.

Kind of like markets.

Home maybe where the heart is but, these days, it’s not as affordable as it once was.  

The average price of a home in 1975 was around $42,000. Adjusted for inflation, today that would be approximately $240,000. Today, the national average cost of a home in Canada is around $700,000. That’s quite a difference.

Today, most passenger vehicles are powered by four-cylinder engines. Once upon a time, everyone drove a car with a gas-guzzling eight-cylinder engine. And, can anything really beat the growl of a 307 engine in a 1972 Nova SS? But we digress.

And that’s how markets work. They adapt and respond to outside pressure to meet the changing and evolving needs of their customers.

There are differing stories about the origin of the phrase “rule of thumb”, but generally it refers to a quick and basic way to make an estimate. Some suggest that the phrase originated because the width of a human thumb is approximately one inch, which made it acceptable for a rough measurement in construction. Not exactly accurate -- good enough for some things, but not precise enough for other applications.

Many industries have their own “rules of thumb” – information guidelines based on experience rather than actual measurement or science, and financial and investment management is no different.