TACO tracking

  By Guest Blogger Doug Rowat

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Nikita Kucherov, the star forward of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who’s not only a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame but already has two Stanley Cup rings to his name, has said the following about learning his opponents’ tendencies: “When you study, you have a bigger library. Some guys go out drinking. I just want to watch shifts.”

Watching shifts, of course, is just another way of saying looking for patterns, and the way that Kucherov studies defencemen is becoming the way that more and more analysts are approaching Donald Trump’s second term as president.

Trump is seen, on the surface at least, as wildly unpredictable, doing such unexpected things that most market analysts are left scrambling to adjust forecasts amidst the volatility that he’s created. No doubt that for some of these analysts the better option might be to, indeed, just go out drinking instead.

But, increasingly, analysts are setting down their whiskey glasses, rewinding the game tapes and, like Kucherov, finding the patterns.

It’s not, of course, that we all weren’t vaguely aware of an emerging ‘TACO trade’ or a ‘Trump put’ in early 2025, but now Trump’s showing such behavioural regularity that analysts and economists are starting to more precisely measure it.

It might have started with Forbes, which began tracking Trump’s tariff flip-flops during the first half of 2025. By their count, there were a remarkable 28 flip-flops in just the first six months of his second term.

Bloomberg then grabbed the baton and highlighted the outcome of Trump’s 49 (yes, 49) tariff threats from November 2024 to January 2026. It should surprise no one that only about 20% of his threats were actually imposed in full, the rest ending up in a mishmash of delays, backtracking and watered-down implementation:

Trump’s been batting about .200 with his tariff threats

Source: Bloomberg

Is it any wonder that instead of, as Bloomberg puts it, “sweeping tariff threats that, in normal times, would rattle investors, unnerve CEOs and send economists rushing to revise their growth forecasts” are currently being greeted with relative calm. The kind of calm seen in villagers who have heard shepherd boys cry too often about wolves.

And, if static pie charts don’t do it for you, take a look at the work of the Atlantic Council, an international think tank, which has actually created an interactive timelapse chart showing how Trump’s tariff policies change over time (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/geoeconomics-center/trump-tariff-tracker/). Slide it back to mid-2025 and things didn’t look great:

Tariff rates on US imports – August 2025

Source: Atlantic Council

But slide it forward to today and here’s your visual proof that the TACO trade (with some help from the US Supreme Court) has kicked in nicely:

Tariff rates on US imports – current

Source: Atlantic Council

But a research head at a precious metals-trading house perhaps described Trump’s behaviour best, recently stating that “we’ve analyzed every major Trump announcement over the past 14 months. There’s a choreography to it – a repeatable sequence of fear, relief and momentum. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”

So, just as analysts and economists might have in the past implemented models that included, say, interest-rate assumptions, corporate earnings outlook, inflation rates or housing starts, they’re now also incorporating the rhythms of Trump’s shock announcements. And there’s now sufficient evidence to actually create datasets. These are the strange times we’re living in.

We’ll probably never know what Trump’s next big move is going to be. Perhaps no one does. That’s the unpredictable part. But we’re starting to watch the shifts, as Kucherov would say, and we’ve got a big enough library now to know what Trump’s second or third moves are likely going to be. And the evidence suggests that these moves will involve backtracking, followed by more backtracking.

Fewer of us are being fooled anymore. We’re all watching the game tapes.

Doug Rowat, FCSI® is Portfolio Manager with Turner Investments and Senior Investment Advisor, Private Client Group, Raymond James Ltd.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/03/28/taco-tracking/