Let’s see …
… after multi-year double-digit increases, copper and gold prices both hit all time highs in the same week … this week. The latest year over year increase in the PCE deflator – one of the most consistently lowball measures of domestic goods and services price inflation – remains elevated at 2.5% while millions struggle with high prices of essentials like food and housing. Stock valuations are at bubble heights previously scaled only in 1929 and 1999.
The Fed’s last interest rate move was a cut and its latest balance sheet move was to reduce its balance sheet rolloff from $25B to $5B a month … just last week. It still has $2.2T in mortgage securities on its balance sheet, having put them there as an emergency measure in the wake of a short-lived deflationary crash five years ago which was over within a few months. It continues to posture that the main policy question before it is when to make its next rate cut.
What’s wrong with this picture?
How long a list do you want?
Haha … kinda like a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle where you’re looking for all the characters who aren’t Waldo…
Meantime British news paper are saying-
“A peace deal does not mean bosses should return to Russia”
“A country where corruption is endemic and leaders untrustworthy is not fit for investment”
In other words we are now moving to a Post Ukraine war world.
Mike
… and then … ??? …
Proposed United States acquisition of Greenland
Mega’s Dispatch from England- Doom Loop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcn7mvilTMw
Here comes china!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-0NwjRX1Fg&t=459s
Nothing outstanding, but all you need for less than £20K
Très cool … perfect for running around town. The only think I don’t care for is the big screen sticking up on its own pod like a cyclops. Tesla does this too … integrate the darn thing into the dash! Next … will the government allow us to buy cheap electric cars? You would think the greens would be all over this.
Gold just opened & its just under $3,100
and on to $3101.10 within minutes…
$3113.69
In case there was any remaining doubt, recent market action should put to rest once and for all the lie that bitcoin is “digital gold”.
While gold has soared heavenward, bitcoin has sunk with the Nasdaq and Mag 7.
Bitcoin is a disembodied tech stock.
Mag 7 & Nasdaq finding some support today. Bitcoin too. No coincidence.
Disembodied tech stock.
Not digital gold.
$3125
Trump just said all nations to be trade taxed!
That would be more in line with his campaign promises. It would be better economically too if the rates aren’t too high.
https://www.gold-eagle.com/president-donald-trump-weighs-broader-higher-tariffs-wsj
The market action reminds me of 2020. Stocks were due for a selloff and the economy for a recession. The yield curve had inverted and uninverted in 2019, and the data were starting to break in January. Then along came Covid and everybody forgot about all that.
The yield curve was deeply inverted for much of 2022-2024, and then uninverted. Stocks were set up for a selloff and the economy for a recession. But the financially amnesiac and financially conflicted corporate media would rather spin a Trump story.
Similar thing in 2001. Stocks were in a bear market, and already in a down leg on 0911. If you look at a chart from 2000-2003 or so without the dates on it you would be hard pressed to guess which decline was around 0911. But the media blamed the selloff on the terrorist attacks. Marketwise, the attacks mostly just transiently intensified a bear market already under way.
Now the official narrative is that tariffs are causing stock prices to go down and bringing on a recession. Set aside for a moment whether these are even bad things. Or Joe Biden’s tariffs. What about the yield curve inversion, which has a nigh perfect record of calling recessions? Did the bond market know – a year ago, two years ago – that tariffs would be the Big Thing in Spring 2025? Did it know in 2019 that Covid was coming in 2020 and that the government was going to shut down half the economy?
Of course not. The markets and economy were already due for a break and media ignored the history and chose bogus explanations to suit.
Another question unanswered by the corporate media: If this quarter’s stock market selloff is really about tariffs, then why is the high tech industry – the least affected by tariffs – down the most? Why is it that today, two days before Big Scary Tariff Day, the Nasdaq is weak but the Dow Jones Industrial Average is strong?
Don’t look for answers from the globalist media. They won’t even ask the questions.
IF…………….& its a big if, Musk can cut $1 Trillion & overseas company invest $4 Trillion then he might pull it off.
Mike
Oh, agree with every word, Mike. The “it” part merits some reflection. For sure if it’s “the economy” the ifs are pretty big.
I think in the longer run there’s still more to it … he wants to shift the tax base from internal income to the border, more like it was originally conceived. The US government collected most of its revenue from tariffs and duties for over a century. There was no permanent national income tax until 1913.
The principle is that the most legitimate and fundamental concern of any government is its border. As opposed to meddling in its citizens’ private business and other countries’ internal affairs, governing who and what crosses its border practically defines the essence of a sovereign. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim Trump and company are driven by a coherent ideological core, but if you tote up the overall sum of policy that’s basically the gist of it.
A word on the stock market. We may have seen a short term low. As I speculated a couple weeks ago, at least some of this selloff is likely garden variety seasonality. I’ve been adding a bit on dips on this hypothesis. That wouldn’t mean that a bear market isn’t still in progress or that yet lower lows don’t still lie ahead, but at least temporary lows are commonly seen in the vicinity of the equinoxes.
Will Iran & Us go to war?
That seems to be the next big question
Mike
I don’t know, but this is one problem that might not have been had the US been cultivating better relations with Russia. North Korea for another. IMO US has for too long squandered the potential fruits of the end of the Cold War and become fixated on competition between the major military powers. It’s hard to imagine any third world country being a geopolitical problem if America, Russia and China were in accord.
Do you think US & Iran will go to war?
Never mind
If Blighty goes the way of the USSR then i can look forward to large numbers of financially destressed young women having to make a living…giving pleasure to Mega
😉
Gold hit $3172 over night……………..because of Trump tariffs sez the MSM
Mega’s dispatch from England:- Staring into the Abyss
Today every Limey was hit with MEGA Tax rises & bill rises. Strangely everything has arrived in one big bump. Suddenly it got REAL.
Local Taxes
Power bills
Water bills
Telecoms
Government taxes
Plus the Government has made it VERY tough to sack anyone, so as an employer you will want to run a “Lean ship” as possible. They also have rather unhelpfully said they are going to pass on the costs, thus a tidal wave of inflation will be INCOMING!
People are pissed, unlike the 1970s there no where to hide. As wage demands rise don’t expect to see any “WIN” badges about the place…..the people are 100% sure where their inflation is coming from.
If Blighty had a Great Prime Minster, one whom knew how to lead they might muddle though….but they don’t. They have a Labour leader whom spend a lot of time behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980’s getting trained in how to “Control” to population! Only today we lean that we are going to have a “Two Tier” crime sentence system where if you are a white male christens or Jew you face a MUCH harder sentence than other gender/relists types.
THis low grade PM has little if any idea what to do now that “Project Ukraine” is in the shitter. Suddenly its beginning to strike them that there is no need to unchecked mass immigration & rather than adding growth to the Economy all its doing is adding (unserviceable) debts.
With what little manufacturing getting TAXED to Maris at home & tariffed to death by Trump investment is leaving.
It can only be a short time before the IMF comes in like 1976 & the pain arrives. A 1st World nation looking to a future that will be a cross of the fall of USSR & a 3rd World nation.
Mike
Lord Liverpool would know what to do!
https://www.tbwns.com/2025/03/31/the-bears-lair-the-rise-in-economic-illiteracy/#more-11426
I dare you, i DOUBLE dare you to read:-
https://carnewschina.com/
bear in mind vw has collasping sales & more than $206 Billion in debt!!!
China is about eat them alive!!!!
Mike
Wow trump update……………..the Limey bastards are NOT getting off the trade taxes!
The Limey MSM was spinning that a “Trade deal” was in the making it now “Delayed”….thus we getting hit as well.
I thought it was just Landrover & Aston Martin & Rolls Royce, but i forgotten about Mini.
Oh Dear
They will supposedly give “caps” or starting rates which may come down on a country basis.
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told lawmakers on Tuesday that Wednesday’s tariffs will essentially serve as a “cap,” where the tariffs that are announced will be the highest amount set, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) revealed to CNBC’s Emily Wilkins. That will give countries the opportunity to take steps to bring the tariff amount down.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/01/stock-market-today-live-updates.html
The announcement is supposed to come at 16:00 EDT, so we should have more info soon…
25,000 Limey manufacturing jobs in the shitter if this goes ahead……heres hoping
Mike
Regardless of the longer term outcome, I expect these tariffs to be initially globally disruptive, with possibly the worst effects in the US, though nowhere on earth will be entirely untouched. You can’t reverse decades of increasingly aggressive globalism on a dime without some side effects, and they are tax hikes.
Yet I maintain the financial media’s outrage is drenched with bias. While it screams bloody murder over a 20% possible tax rate on trade between an American and someone in another country, it has no problem with higher tax rates (via the income tax) on trade between one and another across the street. But it’s still a tax increase and sudden one that is going to take time to work through.
But something was going to break anyway. Government debt has been spiraling out of control and the piper will be paid one way or another. Even this tax increase won’t be enough to stop it. The debt crisis and the likely attempts to inflate it away will dwarf anything tariffs have in store.
Ok, Tonight the night………….lets see what comes
OK, almost 7pm here in blighty……….we just heard that the taxes will be by a nation by nation & what they produce…………..Good luck everyone
The US president will divide his reciprocal tariffs into three bands of 10pc, 15pc and 20pc, which will differ between nations and sectors, according to Sky News.
Fin, you love this:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTfUzYnUKQc
😎
Baseline tariff of 10% across the board👍 25% tariff on cars👎
Effective at midnight. Reciprocal tariffs to amount to about half of combined effects of “monetary” and “nonmonetary” costs imposed by the other party, eg China 34%, Europe 20%, Japan 24%.
Full list:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trumps-liberation-day-live-blog-all-you-need-know
Ok, Blighty looking at 10% & 25% on the cars…………will need to read the small print.
BMW will Devo now sell Mini to a China car firm.
Merc sez its going to sell only expensive cars as do Audi…
Canada and Mexico to be exempt from “reciprocal” tariffs per USMCA.
I wait till tomorrow until the dust settles…..
Your wisdom exceeds my patience;-)
Looks like the settling has a ways to go. VT (the stock index fund) is down 2.54% in post-market trading. S&P futures are down 3.24%. The timing leaves little question that it’s tariff news related.
GOVT (the treasury index fund) in contrast is up 0.09% and IAU (the gold index fund) is up 0.63%.
Not without a plausible justification. Part of the cost of tariffs will come from corporate profits. Look no further to understand why corporate media is waging war on them.
The action in treasuries and gold
is likely coincidental … both were rising before tariffs were making headlines … gold way before. As I noted earlier, the history of the yield curve over the past couple of years already prefigured a recession. Tariffs or not. Tariffs, while not solely responsible, are however contributing to the stock selloff via their likely effect on corporate profits.
Clueless as every………this man said the internet was a FAD & refused to use EMAIL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLAUWbt9xBg