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CEOs Say US Economy Resilient Amid Supply Shocks but Markets Underprice Risks
A Semafor report based on interviews with more than 300 executives, policymakers and decision-makers found a growing gap between corporate leaders in the real economy and Wall Street financiers on economic risks. Markets have reached all-time highs despite the Iran war, oil shocks and tariff changes while many CEOs report record profits, growing AI investment and low unemployment.
May 7, 5:00 AM·2m read1 source
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The gap in expectations between CEOs running retailers, industrial giants, and other real economy companies and Wall Street financiers has grown, according to a new report released Thursday. Markets continue to hit all-time highs despite the Iran war as well as oil and other supply shocks.
Main Street largely remains sanguine with corporate profits at record highs, AI investment growing, unemployment near historic lows, and the US emerging as a relative winner among economies. Major CEOs operating global businesses said they feel battle-tested enough to absorb almost any disruption.
They expressed excitement about the promise of AI even if details of its value remain unclear. Wall Street decision-makers who attended an April gathering sounded alarms that investors are treating the current economic moment of physical supply disruptions, geopolitical fracturing and tariff changes like past liquidity crises solvable with government cash.
and Geopolitical Risks
Executives at the April gathering mostly agreed that the US was somewhat insulated from the most extreme energy price volatility resulting from the conflict but diverged on where the true costs of the disruption would fall. The analysis used a proprietary AI tool to parse the full onstage record across five days and rank nearly 5,000 distinct claims from CEOs, lawmakers, central bank governors and finance ministers.
The tool distilled the signals into nine evidence-backed themes revealing an economy defined by chokepoints including industrial policy, supply chains, energy independence, the Iran war, energy demand from AI, the AI race, AI and the workforce, private credit and public markets.
