The week ahead

Today is the 48th day of the year. February is 57% done, Q1 is more than halfway over, and we are 13% of the way through 2025. The 5900 crisis is technically over, but the full recovery seems on hold as the world waits to see how Trump’s Schrodinger trade wars play out and impact global supply chains and inflation. Rates aren’t coming down. Prices aren’t coming down. Neither of those trends is helpful to the broader market.

> PH:  This week’s importance was downgraded when the BSP rate-setting announcement was scheduled and concluded last Thursday. We have some analyst briefings with some major companies (ALI / MBT / AREIT) toward the end of the week, but that’s about it.

> International:  US markets are closed on Monday to observe the President’s Day holiday. After that, the Reserve Bank of Australia announces its rate-setting decision on Tuesday.

MB BOTTOM-LINE:  The crypto bros that were flying so high in January have gone silent. My feed has way fewer portsnaps zoomed in to accentuate the relative gain (and hide the absolute value). Gold has taken a small step back after an 8% 30-day surge. The peso is trading in the high 57s to the US Dollar. I’m an untrained guy with an interest in finance, but it feels like there’s a lot of money moving around while the world waits to see what the Trump presidency’s self-immolation will do to global trade and how that (and other factors) might impact interest rates and the cost of capital. Everything feels very defensive. I don’t know if that’s an accurate portrayal of all areas of the market, and it probably reflects a strong long-term bias on my part, but I just don’t know many investors who are making big bets based on a thesis of broad-based economic growth. 

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