Category: insight
-
Up Only
US markets returned from the July 4th long-weekend and promptly announced a slight reprieve on the imminent tariff deadlines, where Secretary Lutnick signaled the country-by-country tariffs will kick in on August 1st, effectively giving trading partners some breathing room to make last minute deals. Source: Reuters Meanwhile, risk markets enjoyed another solid week with NFP…
-
Animal Spirits
Whether by luck or good fortune, our ‘escalate to de-escalate’ prognosis last week turned out to be on target, with markets unwinding the Monday panic risk-off into fresh all time highs by the end of the week. A tentative ceasefire on Tuesday, leading to a ~15% turnaround in oil prices and other commodities. SPX broke…
-
Escalate to De-Escalate?
Geopolitical tensions escalated over the weekend, as US bombers made a surprisingly quick and precise attack on 3 Iranian nuclear installations situated well underground. Damages to the sites were stated to be severe according to US reports, though there has yet to be official confirmations on whether the nuclear material had been destroyed or evacuated…
-
Opening Salvo
Geopolitics stormed back to the forefront, with Israel’s attack on Iran’s facilities, and the latter’s subsequent response spiked oil prices and weakened risk sentiment on Friday. With markets rightly concerned about further escalation risks, Iran’s possible closure of the Hormuz canal, and as well as the US’s potential response to the conflict, would influence where…
-
Quiet Calm
A grounded NFP report added 139k jobs in May and above Wall Street consensus of 126k, though job creation was heavily concentrated in leisure & hospitality and healthcare, with outright losses in government and manufacturing. Details of the report were slightly softer with the unemployment rate rising from 4.19% to 4.24%, and would have been…
-
TACO
It Might Have Been a Quiet Week for Markets, But Always a Bull Market for Meme Creators… Source: Dave Whamond Earlier in the month, FT columnist Robert Armstrong coined what had been a little-known term called ‘TACO’, which stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’, a rather cheeky dig at the President’s seeming propensity to back…
-
Deal No Deal
That was quick. Shortly after capitulating on the China tariff pause, President Trump made an abrupt post on his social media that EU trade discussions “are going nowhere” and he is thus “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025”. Citing EU’s “powerful trade barriers, VAT taxes, ridiculous Corporate…
-
AA
Source: IgniteRatings, X Moody’s Ratings (Moody’s) has downgraded the Government of United States of America’s (US) long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings to Aa1 from Aaa and changed the outlook to stable from negative. This one-notch downgrade on our 21-notch rating scale reflects the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest…
-
Squeeze Up
Risk assets have recovered sharply to levels that are now challenging even the most ardent bears on whether this is still a dead cat bounce or the beginning of a new bull market. While we think labels are often unhelpful and misleading, the pain trade remains for higher prices and that remains the path of…
-
Glass Half Full?
The SPX ended last week with its first nine-day winning streak in over 20 years, closing at the highest price since late price and clawing back all of its losses since the ‘Liberation Day’ crash, as the administration dialed back some of the rhetoric on its most hawkish trade policies. US Stocks have Clawed Back…