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Doldrums

What interesting times we live in.

With the markets closing near all time highs (again) just as the US administration is busy enacting operation regime change 2.0 around the world…

January 12th, 2026

NGMI?

Crypto prices faltered again the past week with BTC touching $94k on the back of a thin Monday selloff, with the majors selling off another 10-20% on a week-on-week basis, and native sentiment as pessimistic as it’s ever been…

November 17th, 2025

Back to Work?

Macro assets had a tough run last week, with Nasdaq suffering its worst weekly loss since Liberation Day in April, dragged down by concerns over a deflating AI bubble and disappointing economic data…

November 10th, 2025

Faithless

With the US govt still under lockdown, last week’s main event was with the FOMC, where they disappointed market doves as Powell pushed back against the fully priced December cut as being “far from” a “foregone conclusion”. Despite the 25bp rate cut, Powell indicated that there are “strongly differing views” amongst the committee, with roughly half the committee supporting the cumulative 75bp cut in Q4, and the other half dissenting…

November 4th, 2025

‘Stonks Only Go Up’

US equities blew out to another record high on Monday, led by the Nasdaq with a +1.6% gain and SPX rallying by 1%. Optimism over another supposedly China-US trade deal, bullish positioning into Mag-7 earnings, and expectations of another dovish Fed meeting propelled risk sentiment higher.

October 28th, 2025

What Uptober?

Macro ended a tumultuous week on a strong note, with yet another ‘TACO’ from President as he publicly admitted that high tariffs on China are not “sustainable” and that he will indeed meet President Xi in two weeks as telegraphed by Treasury Bessent and his team.

October 20th, 2025

Rekt

Worst liquidation day since FTX.. $19bln (or much more) in PNL wiped out from ADL (auto-deleveraging) algorithms across CEXs… altcoins touching zero as market-maker support evaporated… There’s probably no need for us to regurgitate on what was a brutal Friday close for crypto traders and macro investors alike.

October 13th, 2025

Uptober

According to Bloomberg, for just the 26th time over the past 100 years, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Average, and the Russell 2000 all set new record highs over the same week as the melt-up sentiment continued unabated...

October 7th, 2025

Quarter-End

According to Bloomberg, for just the 26th time over the past 100 years, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Average, and the Russell 2000 all set new record highs over the same week as the melt-up sentiment continued unabated...

September 29th, 2025

Froth

According to Bloomberg, for just the 26th time over the past 100 years, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Average, and the Russell 2000 all set new record highs over the same week as the melt-up sentiment continued unabated…

September 22nd, 2025

Up-Only

Last week was an interesting week which saw equities and fixed income markets go on in their respective ways, with the former melting up all week to new ATHs while the latter craters to near cycle lows in yields on subdued economic data…

September 15th, 2025

September Swoon?

Right on queue, we entered into the seasonally tricky September period with a small headline miss on NFP, with the 3-month average trend slowing the weakest space since the pandemic…

September 8th, 2025

Seasonal Caution

A slow week overall with US markets almost ignoring the two most anticipated events of the past week – Nvidia’s earnings results and Friday’s PCE data…

September 2nd, 2025

J-Pow

After a full week of anticipation, Chair Powell delivered a show-stopper by delivering an unexpectedly dovish speech that emphasized downside employment, while willing to look through tariff-related inflation pressures…

August 25th, 2025

Heat Check

We ended a choppy but ultimately range-bound week with the latest inflation measures parting ways, with the July PPI showing an unwelcome spike to the upside (+0.9% MoM vs +0.2 expected, led by a jump in professional services) following the benign CPI from the week prior…

August 18th, 2025

Summer Break

Not a whole lot of to report this week, as the S&P 500 brushed off the post NFP shock to recover back close to their ATHs. On the other hand, Nasdaq managed a new record thanks to strong earnings reports, brushing off the ongoing political drama with the Trump administration & new import taxes…

August 11st, 2025

Negative Revisions

What goes up must come down. After an extended period of ‘up-only’ mode, risk assets were reintroduced to gravity with a disappointing NFP figure that missed across the board…

August 4th, 2025

15% Floor

15% – that would seem to be the new ‘official’floor tariff rates for all US trade deals going forward given the most recent announcements with Japan and EU over the weekend…

July 28th, 2025

Indomitable

Another week, another record high. The SPX hit another ATH on Friday, the 3rd fresh record for the week and the 6th in July.The market continued to ignore ongoing tariff escalations (30% on Mexico & EU), nascent price-pressure passthroughs in the latest CPI, and the latest drama to terminate Fed Chair Powell ‘for cause’…

July 21st, 2025

Tariffs 2.0

With geopolitical conflicts firmly in the rear-mirror, the most remarkable development over the past week was not the new tariff levels set under Trump’s ‘2.0’ revisions, but rather how the markets completed ignored this escalation…

July 14th, 2025

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…

July 7th, 2025

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…

June 30th, 2025

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…

June 23rd, 2025

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…

June 16th, 2025

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…

June 9th, 2025

TACO

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 out of tough trade negotiations after an aggressive opening salvo…

June 2nd, 2025

Deal No Deal

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″…

May 26th, 2025

AA

Moody’s downgrade of the US long-term credit rating marks the last major credit agency hold-out to have removed US debt from a vaunted ‘AAA’ status…

May 19th, 2025

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…

May 12th, 2025

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…

May 6th, 2025

He Said, Xi Said…

US continued their tariff brinkmanship with the world, with Trump most recently declaring that ‘over 200’ trade talks were taking place and that he’s spoken on the phone with President Xi most recently…

April 28th, 2025

The Times They Are a-Changin’

We are coming up in the first 100 days of Trump’s 2nd presidency, but the geopolitical world already feels unrecognizable versus just a few months ago…

April 22nd, 2025

Powell’s Speech at the Economic Club of Chicag


Powell’s remarks at the Economic Club of Chicago revealed little new information, though he did disappoint doves by stressing their focus on protecting against tariff-driven price hikes from driving a long-term rise in inflation expectations…

April 17th, 2025

Red Light, Green Light

After a wild week of intense geopolitical aggression from the US vs the rest of the world, we ended the week on a strong note as President Trump appears to have made a significant concession with a stated exemption on smartphones, computers, and other electronic devices from reciprocal tariffs…

April 14th, 2025

Macro assets crashed across the board with the Nasdaq retracing nearly 25% peak to trough, and markets showing ominous signs of a modern ‘Black Monday’ with US equities trading down -4% this morning, and China/HK stocks trading down -9% as of the time of writing…

April 7th, 2025

Quarter-End

Risk assets endured a terrible end to a rough week with US equities trading down -2 to -3% on terrible breadth, CDS spreads hitting recent wides (+20bp on high yield), crypto prices breaking back to YTD lows (BTC <$82k), treasuries bull steepened, and spot gold hitting record highs as the primary risk-off hedge…

Mar 31st, 2025

Options Market Turns Cautious: Traders Eye April 2 Announcement


Risk markets sold off across the board with Trump’s “liberation day” of reciprocal tariff announcements at just around the corner. Activity was anywhere from 20 to 40% below recent averages given the ‘wait and see’ nature of tariffs, with sell offs seen across US equities, Asian equities, EM FX, oil, and crypto…

Mar 28, 2025

Focus Turns to April 2 “Liberation Day” Tariff Announcement


The pattern being noted is similar to what one can observe in equities, where bounces off extreme oversold positions have been tepid and shallow as the overall technical picture has turned negative…

Mar 25, 2025

Will the Real ‘Trump-Put’ Please Stand Up?

Markets settled down over the past week as risk assets steadied after a few weeks of extreme selling pressures, and the Trump administration behaving in a relatively muted manner as of late…

Mar 24th, 2025

How High the Bounce?

Last week was another rollercoaster ride in asset markets, though the market saw a decent bounce on Thu/Fri after registering extreme oversold readings on various technicals (CBOE put-call ratios spiked to the highest levels since last summer)...

Mar 17th, 2025

Will the Real ‘Trump-Put’ Please Stand Up?

Oh boy where do we start. This week’s commentary is going to be tricky to write given all the noises going on…

Mar 10th, 2025

Will the Real ‘Trump-Put’ Please Stand Up?

Oh boy where do we start. This week’s commentary is going to be tricky to write given all the noises going on…

Mar 3rd, 2025

Heist

Just as the FTX-saga was finally winding-up with deposits being returned to victims, crypto was jolted by another shocker as Bybit disclosed that it was hacked with a ~$1.5bln theft of one of their Ethereum cold-wallets, with Lazarus group (North Korea) being named as the culprit…

Feb 24, 2025

Slow Grind

Macro markets have settled down into a sleepy range market, with sentiment trending back into the familiar ‘goldilocks’ mode with both equity and bond prices grinding higher on lukewarm economic data and falling volatility…

Feb 17, 2025

Return-Free Risk

The start of 2025 has been marred by a series of false starts and unresolved price action, with risk assets struggling for direction after the game-changing Deepseek narrative and the on-and-off tariff threats from President Trump…

Feb 10, 2025

Gradually, Then Suddenly

After years of trepredation and anticipation, a milestone moment in crypto finally passed as markets were treated to a non-stop flow of positive political headlines from the incoming Trump administration…

Jan 27, 2025

He’s Back.

The highly anticipated return of Trump 2.0 did not disappoint, as the President-elect highlighted a ‘very good’ call with China’s President Xi, a ‘revival’ of TikTok within hours after it’s ban...

Jan 20, 2025

Happy New Year

A quick look-back at 2024 showed another “buy everything” rally where nearly all major macro asset classes showed positive returns across the board…

Jan 6, 2025

The Xmas Grinch

As we turn the page on 2024, the last few sessions of the trading year turned out to be more consequential than expected. While the BoE and BoJ gave delivered ‘dovish holds’ as market expected, the Fed surprised markets with its own ‘hawkish hike’ along with a technical adjustment to the overnight reverse repo rate…

Dec 30, 2024

December Goldilocks

After a long and bumpy ride, Microstrategy successfully completed its successful transformation from a dotcom-era software company into a levered Bitcoin treasury company for Main Street, when NASDAQ announced MSTR’s inclusion into the bellwhether tech index as of December 23rd…

Dec 16, 2024

December Goldilocks

A somewhat lukewarm NFP kept December rate cuts alive, with headlings slightly beating estimates, but last month’s poor figure (12k) saw little upward revisions, pointing to some factual weakness in the job market…

Dec 9, 2024

BTC 100k!

Risk sentiment remains buoyant, with BTC finally breaking through the $100k proverbial wall as risk assets remain bid across the board…

Dec 5, 2024

Korean market plunge given the recent martial law announcement

Late-night news of a surprise martial law in South Korea surprised Asian marketss, though a deeper inspection suggested…

Dec 4, 2024

Final Stretch

Last week was Thanksgiving week in the US, with light volumes and markets staying in a holding pattern for the most part. US equities are about to make history once again, with 2024 turning into one of the best performing years in history…

Dec 2, 2024

The Fox Guarding the Hen House

With BTC approaching the $100k proverbial wall and every macro observer turning into a MSTR convertible bond expert over the past week,crypto dominated headlines as we captured mainstream’s attention to the largest extent since the FTX implosion…

Nov 25, 2024

The Next Inning

US equity markets gave back some of its recent gains on the back of extreme long positioning and worries over the continued climb in yield…

Nov 18, 2024

The Final Stretch

While President-Elect Trump is still not slated to take office for another 2 months, his impact has been felt far and wide both in geopolitics and capital markets…

Nov 11, 2024

Final Election Preview

After an acrimonious and volatile campaign, the long-awaited election is finally here…

Nov 04, 2024

The Final Stretch

Risk markets treaded water the past week as we head into the final stretch of the US election, with both parties bombarding mainstream media with last minute political drive…

Oct 28, 2024

The price action of btc & gold

Market expectations of a Trump win have risen in polymarkets, though ‘official’ prediction markets are still calling for a 50-50 race…

Oct 23, 2024

Range Break?

Risk-on sentiment continued in an otherwise muted week, with US equities, treasuries yields, USD FX, gold and BTC prices all grinding to interim or YTD highs…

Oct 21, 2024

Record #45

US markets saw relatively firmer data last week with both CPI and PPI coming in on the stronger side. Markets were initially confused by the data impact…

Oct 14, 2024

CPI data & the bullish signs from institutions

Macro markets had a quiet week heading into CPI, where we just printed a stronger beat on the core (0.31% MoM vs 0.25% expected) driven by strong shelter inflation and OER…

Oct 11, 2024

Uptober? More Like Jobs-tober.

A significantly stronger than forecast NFP raised significant questions on the Fed’s wisdom to cut 50bp last month, as the US economy added 254k new jobs (vs 150k expected)…

Oct 7, 2024

Labour Week

A soft US core PCE (and weak European CPIs) ended the risk-friendly week with a treasury bull curve steepening move, and equities (US + China) both hovering at cycle highs…

Sept 30, 2024

PBoC’s ‘Whatever It Takes’ Moment?

The recent China stimulus was a long-awaited ‘bazooka’ that the struggling market had long waited for. Against a backdrop of stagnating economic growth and real estate overhang…

Sept 27, 2024

26th September’s bitcoin ETF flows

It’s all the green light for global risk markets as US equities hit new ATHs for the 3rd time this week, helped by a rapid-fire of furious stimulus to resuscitate the long-struggling Chinese economy…

Sept 27, 2024

Ether ETFs have recorded the worst outflows

The current crypto rally remains driven entirely by macro factors and expectations of a Fed ease, rather than idiosyncratic reasons…

Sept 24, 2024

Don’t Fight the Fed

As we outlined in our quick-take on Thursday, Chairman Powell was ‘confidently dovish’ in the latest FOMC, and acted aggressively with a 50bp front-loaded cut while still advocating an economic soft-landing…

Sept 23, 2024

FOMC Quick Take – Confidently Dovish

Chairman Powell gave risk markets what they wanted with a 50bp cut, but was explicit in hedging the larger cut with confident statements that an economic soft-landing is still the base case, and repeated many times…

Sept 19, 2024

50 is the New 25

After being in cruise control for most of the week, Friday saw a sudden repricing of the odds of a 50bp cut in September from ~15% to ~50%…

Sept 16, 2024

Trump-harris debate insights

A well-anticipated Presidential debate that appeared to have ended in Kamala’s favor pushed her election betting odds back in the lead…

Sept 12, 2024

On the Precipice?

US equities suffered their worst weekly close since March 2023, while yields closed at around their lowest levels this year following…

Sept 09, 2024

Thoughts on the data released by …

Markets are currently in the middle of an important regime change which is historically the most volatile juncture for macro assets…

Sept 06, 2024

What caused the slide of more than …

Crypto prices saw the risk-off move lower with BTC falling back to its recent range on the Nasdaq sell-off, though…

Sept 04, 2024

August’s monthly data shows that …

DeFi activity is generally tied to the overall sentiment and market cap of crypto tokens, in the same way that a higher stock market creates tangible wealth effects for the overall economy…

Sept 02, 2024

Seasonally Worst

Last week was a relatively quieter week, where global equities basically retraced to their interim highs and US treasuries ending the month at the lower end of August range…

Sept 02, 2024

Weekly Analysis

An expectedly uneventful week came and went, with global equities basically having retraced to their interim highs, and the highly anticipated (and over scrutinized) Nvidia results saw some wild intraday noise…

Aug 30, 2024

what’s behind the broad crypto market downturn today？

Crypto prices had a poor session, despite major macro assets remaining flat in a holding pattern…

Aug 28, 2024

Jackson hole meeting over the weekend…

Macro markets went into this weekend with strong expectations on a dovish Powell, and the chairman surprisingly managed to ‘out-dove’ expectations…

Aug 26, 2024

The Organization of Secure On-chain Finance Accords

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