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Uncertainty Is the New Baseline, But Here's How to Make Your Playbook Still Work

Author

Noah Zelvis
October 22, 2025

If the economy had a relationship status this fall, it would be “it’s complicated”. Tariffs keep changing, guidance keeps disappearing, and growth forecasts keep inching lower.

The good news is you don’t need a crystal ball to navigate this. You need a calm plan that works whether the next headline is trade truce or trade tiff, part 47.

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Uncertainty Is Driving the Bus

The big theme is policy whiplash. Rising tariffs and moving goalposts have frozen CapEx, slowed hiring, and even knocked first-quarter U.S. GDP negative earlier this year.

Ports saw lighter loads, some companies pulled guidance, and the IMF trimmed 2025 growth across the board, think a few tenths lower for the U.S., Europe, Japan, and emerging markets.

That doesn’t scream crisis, it screams slower and choppier.

Businesses are pressing pause on big decisions. Pauses don’t last forever, but while they do, earnings rely more on efficiency, mix, and pricing power than on booming demand.

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Trade Scenarios Worth Watching

We can oversimplify the possible paths into four vibes:

  • Trade battlefront: more tariffs, alliances largely intact.

  • Grand bargains: cooler heads, modest deals, volatility fades.

  • Assertive nationalism: governments prioritize domestic winners, supply chains relocalize.

  • Great powers: competing blocs and spheres of influence, with lasting frictions.

You don’t have to predict the quadrant.

Build a portfolio that can jog in any of them: domestic operators, tariff-resilient inputs, recurring revenue, and balance sheets that don’t flinch.

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Results may not be typical and may vary from person to person. Making money trading digital currencies takes time and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk.

What the Fed Likely Does Next

Markets still expect more easing this year. Powell is threading the needle between “don’t rekindle inflation” and “don’t kneecap jobs”.

With core inflation hovering ~2.5%–3% and growth decelerating, the base case is a slow-and-steady cut path (not a leap), plus hints that the balance-sheet runoff could be near its finish line to avoid money-market hiccups.

That combination lowers financing costs over time and takes some pressure off smaller, rate-sensitive names.

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What It Means for You

  • Debt & Cash: Variable rates should drift down, but in waves. If you’re refinancing, be ready to pounce rather than hunting the mythical perfect bottom.

  • Equities: Rate cuts help, but leadership rotates under tariff fog. Domestic supply chains, resilient margins, and pricing power are your umbrellas.

  • Bonds: A gentle cut path favors adding a bit of intermediate duration while keeping some short paper for flexibility.

  • Global: Exposure still matters, just pick lanes. Nearshoring, energy infrastructure, and domestic services beat import-heavy models if tariff noise lingers.

Positioning When the Rules Keep Moving

Think barbell, but not boring:

  • On one side, repeat-purchase, fee- or service-driven names that don’t care which way containers are sailing.

  • On the other, cyclical beneficiaries of lower rates and reshoring, industrial plumbing, electrification, and logistics that ride any rebound in orders.

Keep entries staged, size positions sanely, and don’t let headlines rent space in your portfolio for free.

Coffee-Napkin Takeaways

  • Growth down a notch, uncertainty up a lot. This is a muddle through, not a meltdown.

  • Tariffs are a tax on complexity. Domestic supply chains and must-have services win on the margins.

  • The Fed is easing, just not sprinting. Cheaper funding slowly lifts the floor for small/mid-caps.

  • Playbooks that work across scenarios > bold single-bet calls.

Top Picks

nVent Electric (NYSE: NVT)

Electrification is the quiet megatrend that doesn’t care about tweet cycles.

nVent sells the unglamorous essentials, electrical enclosures, cable management, thermal and surge protection, that make data centers, factories, utilities, and EV infrastructure actually work.

Much of its portfolio is North America–centric, which reduces tariff headaches versus import-heavy peers.

Lower rates help project finance with power-hungry AI buildouts and grid upgrades create multi-year demand. The model is attractive.

A high mix of aftermarket/retrofit, disciplined bolt-on M&A, and room for margin lift as mix tilts toward higher-value protection systems.

In a world where capex gets paused, maintenance and reliability spend still shows up on Monday morning, and that’s nVent’s lane.

Simpson Manufacturing (NYSE: SSD)

If you’ve ever seen metal brackets connecting a beam to a post, you’ve probably seen Simpson’s work.

Building codes tighten over time, repair-and-remodel keeps chugging even when new starts wobble, and Simpson owns the category for structural connectors and fasteners.

It manufactures mostly in the U.S., giving it an edge if tariffs keep ping-ponging. 

Lower mortgage rates won’t instantly fix housing, but even a modest turn helps volumes while code adoption and product innovation support pricing.

Think quiet compounding: high returns on capital, clean balance sheet, and pricing power that’s earned through engineering, not hype.

When uncertainty rises, code-required beats nice-to-have.

ArcBest (NASDAQ: ARCB)

LTL (less-than-truckload) shipping lives in the real economy’s bloodstream, and ArcBest has been steadily upgrading that circulatory system.

After the industry shake-up from a competitor’s exit last year, disciplined carriers gained pricing power and density.

ArcBest layered in technology (dynamic pricing, freight-matching) and higher-margin logistics services to smooth the cycle.

It’s a domestic operator, so minimal tariff exposure, and a prime beneficiary if rate cuts nudge shipments and inventories off the couch.

Balance sheet? Solid. Playbook? Use free cash flow for tech, terminals, and buybacks while staying picky on price.

If you want a cyclical that doesn’t forget risk management, this is one.

FirstCash Holdings (NASDAQ: FCFS)

When uncertainty rises, consumers get scrappy. FirstCash’s pawn and small-dollar lending model thrives on that pragmatism.

It’s collateral-based lending with short durations, tight underwriting, and inventory that turns into retail sales if loans aren’t repaid. U.S. exposure keeps tariff noise low and Latin America adds growth without relying on global trade lanes. 

Rate relief helps at the margin, but the real story is resilience.

Steady same-store sales, disciplined store openings, and a business that naturally hedges consumer stress while participating when wallets loosen.

Not flashy, very cash-flow generative, and historically less correlated with big market mood swings.

If the macro feels like a game of tariff Jenga, your edge is owning businesses that still make money when a block gets pulled.

Keep the plan simple and stick to cash flow, avoid import landmines, and let the Fed do the heavy lifting on rates while you build positions you’ll still like six headlines from now.

That’s it for today’s edition—thanks for reading! Reply to this email with any feedback or let me know which macro trends or markets you’d like me to cover next.

Best Regards,
—Noah Zelvis
Macro Notes