John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer Asset Management chief investment strategist, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss U.S. exceptionalism, tariff fears and his market outlook.

Donald Trump has signed an order to impose tariffs imports into the U.S. from countries including China, Mexico and Canada.

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John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer Asset Management, identified tariffs as the most significant concern for financial markets. He noted that the uncertainty surrounding ongoing tariff negotiations, particularly with the European Union, contributes to market volatility and sector-specific worries.

Despite these concerns, Stoltzfus pointed out that U.S. revenue and earnings growth remain strong, inflation is under control, and consumer resilience is evident. He emphasized that U.S. exceptionalism is still intact, largely due to innovation and technology, even as international markets have recently outperformed the U.S. in some respects.

Market's biggest concern is tariffs, says John Stoltzfus

Oppenheimer Asset Management's John Stoltzfus is here. John, you know, we often see this reaction to a tariff headline. If it's 15 to 20 percent on the E.U., we'll wait for more detail on that. Do you want to kind of put that into context for us in terms of how important you think that headline is? Yeah. Kelly, we've been saying for quite a while now that we think that the market's biggest concern is the tariffs, because the end point on the tariffs is still unknown. Negotiations are either in progress or sort of out there on the distant horizon in case of some others. And the market looks at it as to what will be the effect within sectors, within market capitalizations and even within style, growth versus value. You know, that's what the worry is, because on the other hand, we've seen in terms of revenue and earnings growth, that's going fine. The Fed has done a good job in slowing the pace of inflation. And we've got the consumer remarkably resilient relative to all the, you know, we had what, 11 hikes and then three cuts and over nine pauses at this point. So where we are, no recession. We're doing good on that hand. It's the tariffs that are the concerning point. Right. And when you say the concerning point, a lot of people, you know, try to, you know, extrapolate out to to the end outcome. The market's been shrugging off the headlines in large part lately. I mean, the EU is a biggie, though. I think most certainly because of it, because the major trade trade partner and what we've got to figure here is that until we get some kind of agreement that looks livable, this volatility remains an issue. And I think that the problem is that, you know, Europe is now is working, considering other partners in terms of trade to offset what it might lose with the U.S. But I think that ultimately the longer term relationship that exists between the region and our country will see something that will arrive that will be livable for both the consumer, for both the importer or the exporter, rather, and for the importer. It can be worked out for the lower rate than what we're hearing. You know, this touches on a little chat we had with Tim Seymour yesterday, John, where he said, look, this U.S. exceptionalism narrative got way overblown. You go back to January and it was all about how big we were in terms of global market cap, how well the market had done, where were the European innovators, so on and so forth. Of course, now international markets have kind of trounced us. But you say you believe U.S. exceptionalism remains very much intact. Oh, absolutely. We really feel that it does remain intact. And it has to do with innovation and technology. The run that we see when we look around the world and we've been global investors for just about just about 40 years at this point is that it was valuation, which was extremely low in comparison to the U.S., which has inevitably helped the international markets. And then with expectations that there would be some kind of agreement in terms of all these tariffs, really, it's not the end of globalization. The rest of the world feeds into this. But we believe that the U.S., particularly as perhaps as Bill Gross used to say, the cleanest dirty shirt and a hamper of dirty shirts, if all countries are a hamper of dirty shirts, exceptionalism remains a brand of the U.S. when you consider the effects of technology. And around the world, in society, business and consumers deeply have technology deeply embedded in their lives.

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Market's biggest concern is tariffs, says John Stoltzfus

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