Let’s read some tea leaves, shall we?

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission held a roundtable on AI in finance, to chart both the risks and benefits of AI adoption in the financial industry. For anyone curious about what kind of approach the current administration may take on AI, these are the remarks you’ll want to analyze (or overanalyze, if that’s your style).

When it comes to other emerging tech, like crypto, the Trump-era SEC has been keen on reversing the crackdown and caution seen during former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s term.

The March roundtable, by contrast, was billed as a reset. It was about backing up, getting definitions in place, taking stock of where things are, and considering where they might be going. But a reset from what, you may ask—and the answer is still Gensler.

On the topic of AI in finance, Gensler made his skepticism clear, warning of troubling scenarios in which overreliance on AI algorithms in investment decisions could rattle the market. “I would be quite surprised if in the next 10 or 20 years a financial crisis happens and there wasn’t somewhere in the mix some overreliance on one single data set or single base model somewhere,” the former chair told Politico.

The current top brass at the SEC are less alarmist, while still cautious about potential risks.

For more on how the SEC is thinking about AI in finance, click here.—NP

There are a lot of implications to think over with President Donald Trump’s tariffs program.

The most immediate impact, of course, is that imports get more expensive. Suppliers often pass the added costs on to customers further down the supply chain. The tariffs could also impede M&A activity, as we previously reported. Goldman Sachs even recently increased the probability of a recession to 35% as a consequence of tariffs.

Here’s one other thing that tariff-anxious CFOs might want to think about: Their organizations could now be underinsured.

We recently spoke with Brett Hoopingarner, director of underwriting at mutual insurance company Sentry, about the insurance implications of tariffs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What can organizations do with insurance policies to protect against the added risk from tariffs?

Pretty much most property policies will offer [an inflation guard provision]. And that inflation guard is a percentage that can be selected; you can go as low as, generally, 2% all the way up to 30% for our Sentry customers. Then that will get applied throughout the entire 12-month policy period. Let’s say you select 15%. Now you have up to 15% inflation guard added onto the limits you had selected at that time.

Click here for more on tariffs and the risk of underinsurance.—AZ

March was good to Ford.

In Q1, retail sales, or sales directly to consumers, climbed 5%, thanks to a strong March, when retail sales rose 19% and total sales bumped up 10%. That was a lot stronger than the 1.3% dip in total sales for the quarter overall, which was driven in part by lost sales volume from the discontinuation of the Ford Edge.

Gee, you have to wonder why on earth buyers might’ve been flocking to Ford in the month of March? Does the answer happen to rhyme with sheriffs?

If Ford’s results are any indication, it looks like some buyers have snatched up cars before President Trump’s 25% tariffs on passenger vehicles and key auto parts go into effect this week.

Ford will have slightly better luck than some other automakers with respect to tariffs, since it relies less heavily on imports, as Bank of America research analyst John Murphy shared in a note last week. Ford imports around 20% of its vehicles, Murphy noted, while carmakers like Toyota, Hyundai, and Nissan import more than 50% of their vehicles.

Car buyers may feel the results of auto tariffs as soon as mid-April if companies jack up prices, according to Cox Automobile Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke.

Keep reading here.—NP