Although they long for more clarity about tariffs, investors feel they can’t sit on the sidelines as stocks climb.
The stock market is now higher than before President Trump’s broad and steep tariffs sent share prices into a tailspin. The 10-year government bond yield is now largely in line with where it started the year. On Tuesday, a widely watched measure of inflation nudged lower.
Judging from a snapshot of today’s financial markets, it would be easy to conclude that very little had happened over the last four and a half months.
As the administration has dialed down its trade offensive, delaying the worst of the tariffs announced on April 2 and promoting a long list of trade deals in the works, stocks have risen and the unnerving volatility in the government bond market — which Mr. Trump noted when he first began pausing his tariffs — has subsided.
On Tuesday, the latest reading of the Consumer Price Index showed a slower pace of inflation in April than economists had predicted, despite widespread concerns that tariffs could have sped up price increases.
The S&P 500, which came close to hitting a bear market early last month, rose 0.9 percent on Tuesday. The index is now up slightly since the start of the year.
Still, investors remained cautious, and complain that the outlook remains uncertain, with little clarity on what the final level of tariffs will be.