President Trump is touting new Saudi Arabia investments as part of his Middle East trip, but one top Wall Street CEO who followed him to the Gulf Tuesday said the uncertainty surrounding trade still has Western investors sitting on trillions in cash.
"There is 12 trillion euros sitting in bank accounts in Europe. In the United States, there's $11 trillion sitting in money market funds," BlackRock ( BLK ) CEO Larry Fink told delegates at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday.
"When there is uncertainty, you are going to keep more and more money in cash, and that is what we witnessed," Fink added.
His comments came after the US and China announced a 90-day trade truce that includes significantly lower tariffs from both countries, a development that cheered markets and eased some anxiety about the path ahead.
Fink said the clarity investors need is coming “probably sooner than we thought, maybe two, three weeks ago," but how global trade is now going to work is still far from decided and many investors will wait for this “equilibrium” before reallocating from cash.
His hope is that once investors are ready to hop back into the markets, they will chose to allocate more of their funds into private markets, a deepening business for his firm, BlackRock.
"Yes, we're going to have volatility in the next 90 days, but the big thing that I'll be watching: Are we going to be able to see in every economy the opportunity for more active private investments," Fink said.
Other CEOs who were present acknowledged Fink’s point on uncertainty.
Citigroup ( C ) CEO Jane Fraser expressed some optimism about those unknowns, saying, “Volatility is the opportunity for those who get on the front foot and seize the moment.”
The trading operations at Wall Street banks are expected to benefit throughout the turmoil as clients seek to adjust to the latest shifts in US tariffs.
On Tuesday in Riyadh, Fink, Fraser, and Blackstone ( BX ) CEO Stephen Schwarzman are joining Trump for a lunch along with Tesla ( TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk, other US and Saudi officials, and a host of other big US executives, according to a list provided by the White House to the New York Times.
The White House on Tuesday said that Donald Trump secured $600 billion in investment commitments during the summit in Saudi Arabia. US chip giant Nvidia ( NVDA ) also announced a partnership with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.