Medley Advisors

As midweek speculation built of a US retreat from Iran, oil prices dropped back to $100 and the dollar index eased by 1%.  Markets turned their attention to president Donald Trump's address to the nation on Wednesday 1 April in expectation of a near-term ceasefire with the Iranians. Instead, they got a promise "to hit ​them extremely ​hard over the next two ‌to ⁠three weeks ... to bring...

Two weeks into the war between the US-Israeli forces and Iran, commodities and financial markets have whipsawed on every indication of a quick end to hostilities or signs of an extended energy-supply shock. To help clarify the outlook, Mohammad Darwazah, the head of Energy 360 at Energy Aspects, joined Medley Advisors' weekly meeting. In this edited version of the meeting, quizzing him and gi...

Another week, another US tariff regime.   As expected, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the emergency tariff regime operated by President Donald Trump since April 2025 is unconstitutional. Just as expected was Trump's immediate swapping of his emergency powers for alternative executive authorisation. With this, introduced a global 10% tariff and promised to raise this soon to 15%.  Where d...

With his job-approval rate hitting new lows, US president Donald Trump is pulling out every stop to avoid defeat in Congressional midterm elections in November. After six weeks that included military intervention in Venezuela and the threat of tariff hikes on European countries unless they agreed to the forced sale of Greenland, investors are asking what could happen next. Will Trump order an atta...

The morning after US president Donald Trump reversed gears in Davos and (temporarily) dropped the US claim to Greenland, Medley Advisors held their weekly meeting to discuss policymaking and markets. "For me, the surprise was just how little markets actually reacted to this," said Dan Schwarz, the head of macro markets. "The TACO thesis is firmly embedded in markets at this point&qu...

After an eventful 2025, what does 2026 hold for geopolitics, economics, and monetary policy?  Medley Advisors' analysts gathered in the week before Christmas to give their best shot. Outlining their 2026 calls are: Richard Bronze, co-founder of Energy Aspects and head of geopolitics. Ignacio Labaqui, Medley's Latin American politics analyst. Michael Redmond, Medley's "Fed-watch...

Heavy defeats for US Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia and a shrunken winning margin in Tennessee have triggered a spate of Congressional retirements and talk that Donald Trump's second presidency is already a "lame duck". This has prompted market speculation that he could take another populist turn - adding pressure on the Federal Reserve and posting out stimulus cheques.  Mic...

Is this week's correction to the stock market's seven-month streak a pause or a first puncture of the "AI bubble"? Medley Advisors analysts held their weekly meeting just after the first jitters and rally following Nvidia's earnings report but before the aggresive intra-day sell-off on 20 November. They discussed the meaning and causes of the correction, the impact of AI o...

Democratic landslides in US state and city elections this week raised the possibility that Republicans could lose control of Congress entirely in the 2026 midterms.  At the same time, the Supreme Court began public deliberations on legal challenges to the use of IEEPA emergency powers to impose tariffs without Congressional authority. Now on the backfoot after successful Democratic campaigns again...

With an imminent election in Argentina and a string of them looming in Chile, Colombia and Brazil, Medley Advisors’ Latin America analysts decided the time was ripe for a client roadshow in New York last week.   Their arrival also coincided with an escalation of the US’s military build-up in the Caribbean—culminating in deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft-carrier group—as part of a campaign to...

As budgetary standoffs bring down a fifth French cabinet before it even takes office and shut down the US federal government, Medley Advisors analysts met to ask why markets seem so sanguine. "Markets say they care about fiscal sustainability, but I'm not sure they do," says markets specialist Dan Schwartz. "Alternatively, they're saying that, despite the slippage, it&apos...

As they near the end of their easing cycles, the Antipodean central banks are being tested by contrasting data signals - a hot August inflation print in Australia and contracting second-quarter activity in New Zealand. Will these price signals end the Reserve Bank of Australia's rate cuts? By contrast, will economic weakness prompt the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to go for a 50-basis-point cu...

In recent weeks, financial markets have been sending conflicting signals about the risk of inflation, recession, and the sustainability of debt. Japanese and British yields, especially, spiked but then abated in line with falling US rates.  To pick through this head-scratcher, Dan Schwartz, head of macro at Energy Aspects, talked to Medley Advisors’ Andrew Besuyen and Pepijn Bergsen.  "What I...

US President Donald Trump hogs the daily headlines but financial markets had a rare week off as attention turned to the latest episode in France's long fiscal crisis. As François Bayrou prepares to become the fourth prime minister to fall in 20 months, investors are asking whether anyone can pass a budget with such a split national assembly, whether a new legislative election will follow and...

By now, it was meant to be clear that tariffs were pushing up US inflation and depressing employment but, until the producer prices index for July was released this week, evidence had been mixed.  There has been little sign of passthrough to consumer prices although payrolls growth in July and big downward revisions to the May and June estimates were bad enough to provoke President Donald Trump to...

News that the US and Japan had agreed a trade deal a week ahead of deadline added 5% to Japanese equity prices while lifting 10-year rates to 17-year highs, and this was followed by reports of an impending US-EU settlement, which pushed up European stocks by 2% and German 10-year rates by close to 10 basis points. As the 1 August deals deadline approached, analysts at Medley Advisors (a division o...

After "Liberation Day" in April, 7-11 July has been the biggest week so far in US President Donald Trump's disruptive second-term trade policy.  So far this week, 22 countries have received letters warning them that their stay of tariff execution is approaching its end in August. Or September. "This is a TV season and we're nearing the end and it's got to get more and...

As the market impact of the Israel-Iran conflict fades, pre-war market themes - dollar weakness, euro strength, and trade uncertainty - have snapped back, fed by reports that the new Federal Reserve's chair will be unveiled well ahead of his or her appointment. At their weekly meeting before news of minor Chinese and EU trade concessions to the US, Medley Advisors analysts discussed these the...

US Congressional Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” has provoked a rift between President Donald Trump and his former ally Elon Musk but it has also created a policy dilemma for the Federal Reserve.   In this podcast, Medley Advisors’ US analyst and Fed-watcher Michael Redmond talks to Tim Jones.   Longer-term fears of fiscal slippage are keeping long-term US rates high but the bill’s tax cuts may...

Global bond yields may have come off their peaks going into the weekend but this was after a May surge that lifted US 10-year rates by 30 basis points back over 4.5% and pushed Japanese 30- and 40-year rates to all-time highs. At their weekly analysts' meeting, Medley Advisors discussed these market moves and how the authorities could respond, and debated sovereign defaults, inflated-away deb...

In a week that saw US equities return to their pre-“Liberation Day” levels, Medley Advisors’ analysts consider the next steps for the US, European and Brazilian central banks.  “The Federal Reserve doesn’t think that it has a particular edge in guessing where this economy is going from here,” says US analyst and Fed-watcher Michael Redmond. “There could be some inflationary concerns that keep the...

The combination of US President Donald Trump's war of words with the Federal Reserve and apparent de-escalation of his trade war with China lifted US stocks 6% from early-week lows and lopped 10 basis points off 10-year rates. But, as became clear during Medley Advisors' weekly analysts' meeting, these reassurances from Trump and his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provided less th...

The morning after the Trump administration published its “Liberation Day” tariff list, Medley Advisors analysts met to consider the next steps.   They discussed how much of the package was accident or design, US negotiating tactics and capacity, retaliation and conciliation.     “The one thing that's really notable,” said Brian Jackson, Medley’s China and trade specialist, “is that Mexico and...

Over the past three weeks, the US withdrawal from European security and a consequent arms-and-infrastructure fiscal boost for Germany have driven up the euro, along with European equities and interest rates. Medley Advisors' European analysts, Tim Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, got together to discuss whether this political upheaval justifies the scale of repricing. "At the end of the day,&qu...

Eighteen months after Australia’s central bank chief was removed, New Zealand’s governor Adrian Orr quit with three years left of his term.   Both had faced withering political criticism, but Orr’s departure was so abrupt and inexplicable that it shook the market just as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was carefully reversing its pandemic-era tightening cycle.   To explain what Orr’s departure may...