The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that how big businesses are meeting this moment of tariffs and turmoil is one of the great unknowns facing Canadian investors. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that the quarterly earnings season, which gets going this week, will offer a glimpse into how each company is managing the impact. The world has changed since the last time we heard from the executive ranks. First-quarter financial results are close to meaningless given how quickly the global economic order is shifting. How chief executive officers are feeling and what kind of trouble they see coming their way this year and next is of much greater importance. The dense fog of uncertainty shrouding the Canadian economy is a powerful deterrent to investment of all kinds. Mergers and acquisitions have dried up. "It's a pretty difficult time to price assets when you have this kind of uncertainty overhanging things," Christopher Virostek, chief financial officer of West Fraser Timber, said in an earnings call Wednesday when asked about M&A prospects. Meanwhile, the market for initial public offerings is dead quiet. The Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange had zero IPOs in the first quarter.