Supply chains have always been important, but in the last five years, they’ve entered the spotlight as one of the major reasons that companies succeeded or failed during the Covid-19 pandemic, global inflation, extreme weather and geopolitical instability. Ecosystem integration software provider Cleo published a report earlier this month about what the last five years of supply chain disruption have taught the business community, and analyzing why companies triumphed or lost out.

Before the pandemic, supply chain wasn’t a major theme of company operations discussed in earnings calls. Mentions of supply chains in 2019 earnings calls were rare, making up just 2% of discussions on quarterly earnings in the last five years. More than half of the talk about supply chains came in 2021 and 2022, as global economies began to reopen after the pandemic and found new backlogs and difficulties. Many supply chain gaps became more apparent during these years, as companies worked to close them and make their operations smoother.

The report found that the companies that did the best embraced technology and became more agile in terms of strategy and sourcing. They turned pent-up demand into long-term growth, focusing on stocking the highest-margin products first and framing demand to investors as a sign of stability. They worked to optimize their processes through manufacturing, staffing levels and diversified expansion. And they adapted to consumer demands, both with new products and adapting to newer shopping preferences.

The companies with the lowest performance weren’t able to forecast shortages, did not have the technology available to monitor their supply chain operations, and made poor pricing decisions—sometimes absorbing too much of the higher costs and lowering profit margins and investor confidence. They also tended to be more reactive to issues that presented themselves, working to make changes after problems became more evident instead of planning and addressing them proactively.

A new twist in the supply chain saga is playing out now as recently announced global tariffs threaten to make the cost of doing business in the U.S. more expensive. Experts have said that while things are uncertain and rates and effective dates seem to be in constant flux, the same technological strategies will help. Companies that are more agile and have a better visibility on their supply chains are likely in the best position.

Publicly traded companies are always concerned with activist investors, and these groups hoping for companies to make changes have made several big moves in the last year. I talked to investigation firm Nardello & Co.’s CEO Sabina Menschel and Partner Nicholas Peck about trends in activist investors. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

The floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday morning.

Last week was very good on Wall Street, especially compared with earlier this month. The Nasdaq rose 8.29%, while the S&P 500 saw gains of 5.59% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 3.1%. What caused the markets to rise seemed more of an absence of chaos and optimism that new tariff deals would be announced soon. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that he had “no intention of firing” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, following several days of insulting and threatening him with termination on social media. On Wednesday, he said the current 145% tariffs on Chinese goods would “come down substantially.”

Even though Trump sounded like he was softening his tariff stance, there wasn’t much progress in the last week. On Thursday,

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