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

  • Trump’s global order assault
    • Imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico
    • Imposition of additional 10 percent tariffs on China on the existing 10 percent announced earlier
    • Impending tariffs on EU - expected 25%
    • Suspension of military aid to Ukraine
    • Will these help ? Unlikely because federal fiscal deficit still stands at 6 percent of GDP and is showing no signs of coming down
    • 27 percent of Canada’s GDP exports are to US.
    • 21 percent of Mexico’s GDP are exports to US
    • EU exports to the goods to US are only 2.9 percent to US
  • Trump is conducting a heist in broad day light
    • Cryptocurrency reserves
    • Scrapping anti-money laundering measure
    • Shutdown anti-kleptocracy initiative
    • Trump and his wife have launched their own meme coins
  • It is possible that investors and central bankers around the world will move to Euro. The main reason for this is Trump’s policies are increasingly seen putting pressure on dollar
    • Dollar makes up 57 percent of global official reserves and Euro accounts for 20 percent
  • Musk is the fox in the henhouse of science
    • A fox in the henhouse is a classic metaphor for someone who is given access to something they are expected to protect but instead exploits or harms it.
    • In this context, science represents the “henhouse,” meaning the established norms, institutions, or ethical frameworks of the scientific community.
    • Musk, despite his influence in scientific and technological fields (e.g., SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink), is acting in a way that challenges or undermines traditional scientific principles, ethics, or institutions—whether through aggressive commercialism, skepticism of certain scientific norms, or prioritization of profit over research integrity.
  • Saudi Aramco’s net income for the year was 106B USD as compared with 121B in 2023 as energy prices fell. The company said it would pay a total dividend of just over 85B USD compared to 124B USD in the previous year
    • In the past the ooil major’s dividend has helped to fund Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic transformation of Saudi Arabia
  • Opec+ oil cartel has agreed to the first oil production increase by the group since 2022
  • Most European indices are up to 12 percetn or more in dollar terms so far this year as compared to a flat performance by S&P
  • German stock market performance has been even more striking. Dax index is seeing the second-best start to the year since German reunification, rising 13 percent in Euro terms and 15 percent in dollar terms