The following are some of the news items mentioned in the last few days:

  • Donald Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on all imports from the EU
  • Investors pulled nearly 1B USD from bitcoin ETFs on [2025-02-25 Tue], as the deepening slump sparked a record exodus from the vehicles that helped power crypto proces to record highs late last year
  • Trump Memecoin has crashed by 83 percent from a brief high and Trump faced widespread backlash over its launch
  • EU to recalibrate the climate goals as US has abandoned climate goals altogether
  • Despite the much publicized cease fire in the gaza strip, there are all indicators that negotiations will stall and war will resume
  • The US House of representatives has passed a budget resolution that calls for trillions of dollars in tax and spending cuts. Proposes 4.5T USD in tax cuts ,and about 2T USD on spending cuts and allocates billions of dollars more for the military and border security
  • Trump introduces gold card with a 5 million price tag. This will come with the same rights as a green card
  • BP has abandoned a radical attempt to reinvent itself as a green energy company, bowing to investor pressure after its aggressive shift away from fossil fuels over the past five years backfired. Oil and gas spending to rise to 10B USD a year
  • Too much jargon is entering earnings statements
  • Eli Lilly has unveiled a 27 billion investment in US manufacturing facilities as the pharmaceutical industry prepares for the threat of tariffs.
  • Many silicon valley companies are becoming silent on areas like LGBT, ESG, Diversity and Inclusion - Trump effect
  • Best time to be a macro trader
    • Between 2010 and 2019, there were only 13 rate hikes of 0.25 percentage points between US Fed, ECB and BOE. In contrast, the three delivered about 60 0.24 percentage point rate hike between 2021 and 2023. They have already delivered 12 rate cuts of 0.25 percentage points since the second quarter of last year
    • Volatility will be higher as Trump’s policies are diametrically opposite to that of Biden
    • This is unusually risky moment in the time for investors. US debt burden is growing and for now the market is ignoring the magnitude of the problem
    • Cyclically adjusted equity valuations in the US are near the highest level since the dotcom bubble and the concentration risk in the S&P 500 is unprecedented in modern times with the top 10 stocks representing about 30 to 35 percent of index’s capitalization.
    • US bond markets are risky too for two reasons - one is the budget deficit and the second is that there is very little term-premium in the market for taking the risk of holding long term debt.
    • Investors looking to hedge the risk are looking towards macro hedge funds