ANGLES.

Over the weekend we learned of Trump’s proposed 30% tariff on imports from Mexico (non- USMCA ) and the European Union, supposedly to take effect on August 1st, with not-so-veiled threats of a rate increase in the case of any retaliation. Wall Street traders’ strong confidence in the TACO narrative that I talked about in last week’s report wavered somewhat on Monday morning after the weekend’s dec...

Ahead of a risk-filled big few days in tariff-world, stock markets were jittery at the opening bell on Monday , not helped by yet another massive plunge in the price of Tesla shares on the back of Musk’s apparent dive back into politics. Things got worse for stocks as a chaotic wave of different tariff proclamations began to come out, including for Japan and South Korea which were each slapped wit...

There was yet more tariff whiplash over the weekend as the US and Canada appeared to kiss and make up after the the previous Friday’s trade squabble. Trump then turned his rage on the world’s fourth largest economy, calling Japan “very spoiled” and demanding that it buy more American rice .. or else. The deficit-exploding, multi-trillion dollar tax and spending bill (TSB) inched closer to becoming...

Over the weekend, Trump (despite having campaigned noisily just last year on a platform of US non-intervention in global military entanglements) ordered direct airstrikes on Iran which he claimed had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear capabilities (intelligence reports later cast doubt on this assertion). He also floated the idea of Iranian regime change ( “MIGA”? Really?). Unsurprisingly, oil pr...

[Note: this report was put together before Saturday evening’s US airstrikes on Iran] Financial markets were spoiled for choice about what to focus on at the kick-off of a holiday-shortened week - geopolitics, energy and shipping prices, tariffs and trade, a G-7 meeting in Canada, the tax and spending bill and multiple central bank interest rate-setting meetings around the world including at the Fe...

With temperatures rising on the streets of Los Angeles, Wall Street remained cool to start the week with attention focused on the US/China talks in London as well as the prospect of a first peek at inflation data on Wednesday and Thursday that at least partially encompasses the new tariff era. The path of least resistance for stocks is higher right now and that was the cautious direction of travel...

US/China trade tensions flared up over the weekend with both sides aggressively accusing the other of violating the Geneva agreement that is currently capping tariffs between the two countries. US manufacturing data pre-market on Monday confirmed the slowdown in the economy with both imports and exports falling sharply. One analyst described the tariff policy as “raising hell” right now among Amer...

To the surprise of absolutely no-one on Sunday, Trump backed down on his threat of a massive June 1st blanket 50% tariff on the European Union. The supposed effective date is now July 9th, which is the same day that the current pause on the April 2nd tariffs is set to expire. The deferral of this particular tariff risk injected some optimism into European markets while the US and the UK both enjoy...

As anticipated, the powerful symbolism of US sovereign debt being stripped of its final AAA credit rating the previous week weighed on stocks and unnerved the bond market on Monday morning. Trump of course deflected by blaming Biden, but the fact is that a downgrade like this results from the potential fiscal recklessness of this administration and also from foreign investors being driven to look...

Early on Monday morning, Treasury Secretary Bessent confirmed a 90-day “cooling-off period” between the US and China with both countries slashing their tariffs on each other. The US levy on China was taken down from 170% to 30% and China will now charge 10% on US goods instead of 125%. Wall Street took a victory lap, taking credit for having taught the administration the harsh lesson that high tar...

Trump couldn’t help himself at the weekend and took another one of his regular juvenile potshots at Fed chairman Powell, this time he’s apparently “a total stiff” . But he graciously conceded that he’s not about to fire him (because by law he can’t). Wall Street just rolled its eyes and got on with the important stuff like focusing on earnings reports, economic data and the Fed meeting/Powell’s pr...

After a scorching 7% rally in just four trading days the previous week to almost pre-”Liberation Day” levels, stocks took a breather at the open on Monday as a jam-packed week of earnings reports and economic data got under way. The indexes spent most of the day heading slowly but steadily lower as institutional traders took some chips off the table, particularly in the tech arena, after the previ...

Trump’s simmering resentment towards Fed chairman Powell for not bowing to his demands for an immediate interest rate cut was set off again over the weekend by a widely-read pro-Powell opinion article in the Wall Street Journal which described the president’s tariff policy as a “tax” and an “error” . One analyst described any undermining of the Fed’s sacred independence as a “welcome to the jungle...

If I were a cynic (heaven forbid!), I might suggest that Apple chairman Tim Cook’s large donation to Trump’s inauguration fund may be starting to pay off. The president blunted his Chinese tariffs over the weekend by temporarily diluting levies on smartphones and other consumer electronics and brought overdue relief to the likes of Apple who saw its range of products benefit from the latest climbd...

So much to talk about this week, so let’s get right to it .. The weekend break did nothing to calm the stock market’s shredded nerves as the Trump administration met the widespread condemnation of its tariff policy ( “idiotic” was one of the kinder adjectives used) with only denial and defiance coupled with juvenile advice like “be cool” , “hang tough” and “take the medicine” . There were more gig...

Markets began last week as they had finished the previous one, in a world of pain. This was always going to be Tariff Week with Wednesday the key day of announcements, but the prospect of any walk-back of any kind diminished by the hour and the looming reality of tariff turbulence , its inevitable stagflationary effect and a resulting body blow to stock markets really began to set in. Asian and Eu...

Multiple reliable news outlets reported over the weekend that Trump’s April 2nd tariff bender would be more “targeted” in nature than had been initially feared, with a number of companies and even entire sectors maybe getting some kind of temporary reprieve. This gave the tiniest bit of hope that maybe peak tariff chaos might have now passed. Dip buyers jumped all over this on Monday and went barg...

A Fed week began on Monday with financial markets pretty much on hold. While there was zero probability of an interest rate cut announcement, the Wednesday March meeting of the interest rate-setting committee was still set to include the “Dot Plot & Statement of Economic Projections” ; members’ quarterly estimates of where they believe interest rates, inflation and economic growth are heading in t...

Over the weekend, Trump went on TV and pointedly refused to rule out a tariff-fueled recession in the United States. Anybody who attended an eighth grade economics class already understood this risk of course, but for Trump to come out and finally admit it was a new development. The administration's blasé attitude toward potentially setting off a severe downturn badly rattled Wall Street. The week...

Exhausting deadlines about tariffs are not going away (Warren Buffet described them as “an act of war” last week) and market volatility is an inevitable result. Despite the next tariff round looming within 24 hours, markets still seemed convinced on Monday morning that they would not in fact be implemented as promised and stocks initially moved higher at the open. Trump then came out and said ther...

The German federal elections on Sunday panned out mostly as expected and hoped for by financial markets with political stability still within reach after some negotiation in the coming weeks, avoiding a nasty surprise that would have hurt global stock prices. Wall Street briefly rebounded at the open on Monday morning after a difficult prior week, but doubts about the economy soon set in again, th...

US markets were closed on Monday for President’s Day. This left the focus on Europe where local stock markets, which have outperformed US stocks so far in 2025, were priced for what they perceive as a near-perfect outcome from the high-stakes German federal election coming up this weekend, which of course raises the risk of a nasty surprise if that doesn’t happen. A chasm is also opening up betwee...

Over the weekend, Trump fired off yet another tariff broadside on his way to the Super Bowl. This time he floated the idea of a 25% surcharge on steel and aluminum imports from anywhere in the world, but which would disproportionately impact Canada and Mexico. Wall Street seemed to have got into a mode of treating what it regarded as Trump’s posturing as just smoke and mirrors until actual policy...

Trump ushered in what the Wall Street Journal called “the dumbest trade war in history” at the weekend when his administration imposed punitive tariffs on a wide range of products from Canada (25% on non-energy goods and 10% on energy), Mexico (25%) and China (an additional 10% on already-existing tariffs) which were set to take effect on Tuesday. There was instant retaliation in kind within hours...

Jitters caused by yet another example of Trump tossing a hand grenade into a room and not worrying about the clean up until afterwards with the whole Colombia fiasco over the weekend ended up not being the main driver of prices on Monday morning. That honor went to Chinese startup DeepSeek which announced that it is producing cutting-edge AI with minimal costs and no next-gen chips, potentially de...