Jerome Powell's tenure as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has ended. Not literally, of course, because apparently Scott Bessent has, for now, talked President Trump out of firing him. But despite that reprieve, there are now several Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, none of them named Powell. He is the lamest of ducks. A lame duck, literally, is a [...]
Last week President Trump announced, via a letter posted on his social media site, that products from Brazil would face a 50% tariff, starting August 1st, due to their treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for trying to overturn his 2022 election loss. The President also cited Brazil's treatment of US social media companies, which the [...]
The first half of this year saw a lot of old trends turned upside down. Foreign stocks outperformed US stocks, gold had its best first half performance since 2007 and the dollar its worst start to a year since 1973. It was that year that the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates breathed its last. It had started to [...]
If, at the beginning of the year, anyone had predicted what actually happened in the first half of 2025, they would have been ridiculed and dismissed as delusional. If you were told that... Between January and April, the average US tariff rate will rise from 2.5% to 27% Among the Trump administration's first moves on trade will be to impose [...]
Note: I wrote most of this commentary prior to the US strike on Iran and I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I don't know any more than you do about what is going on in the Middle East and trying to predict what will happen in the coming days and weeks is a fool's errand. We have a [...]
Oil jumped 7.5% last Friday in the wake of the Israeli attack on Iran but the reaction in most other markets was surprisingly muted. The dollar, which normally catches a bid in these situations, was up just 0.27% and US Treasuries actually sold off on the news. Gold was the preferred safe haven this time, up 1.4% on the week. [...]
In about five weeks, the pause on President Trump's "liberation day" tariffs will expire. So far, the US has come to an agreement, of sorts, with exactly one country - the UK. That outline of an agreement so far doesn't mean anything because the full terms haven't been agreed to nor implemented. In other words, we don't yet have a [...]
The tariff rollercoaster continues. This week most of President Trump's tariffs were ruled to be outside the scope of the law he used to impose them. I was not surprised in the least because, as I wrote a few weeks ago, I actually took the time to read the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the word tariff doesn't even [...]
In commodity markets there's an old saying that low prices cure low prices and high prices cure high prices. High prices lead to over-investment in new capacity which leads to gluts and low prices. Low prices restrain investment which leads to shortages and high prices. It's the boom and bust nature of commodity markets although the time it takes between [...]
Moody's Ratings downgrades United States ratings to Aa1 from Aaa; changes outlook to stable New York, May 16, 2025 -- Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has downgraded the Government of United States of America's (US) long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings to Aa1 from Aaa and changed the outlook to stable from negative. This one-notch downgrade on our 21-notch rating scale reflects [...]
Stay In Touch