The week ahead

Today is the 174th day of 2025. We’re 77% of the way through June, and we’re 92% of the way through Q2. The year is 48% complete. While we got a great deal of certainty from the US Federal Reserve and our own Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on interest rates, Trump’s decision to join Israel’s war with Iran by bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites is a huge source of new uncertainty. How will this impact the price of gold? How will it impact the price of oil? Will the US markets continue to mostly ignore the implications of what we can all plainly see, or will some of those chickens start to come home to roost?

> PH:  There’s absolutely nothing on my calendar this week. I mean, there will be 38 stockholders’ meetings over the five-day period, and there’s bound to be some news that tumbles out of that, but we don’t have any interesting events planned.

> International:  Nothing of material interest compared to the war.

  MB BOTTOM-LINE:  I studied political science in school, but I didn’t specialize in international relations, so I don’t have any training on how to interpret the newest branch of the conflict between Israel and Iran, especially now that the US has stumbled into it. All I can really do is watch and be amazed at how (1) Iran doesn’t seem to have anywhere near the punching power the West had feared (yet?), (2) Israel seems unhinged in its bloodlust on multiple fronts, and (3) the US was so easily dragged into the conflict by Israel. That last point is the one that makes me the most uneasy. Trump can’t read his daily briefings, can’t listen to advice or critical feedback, and has surrounded himself with people who are as incompetent as they are fanatical in their support for Trump. It’s a dark Marvel “What If...?” take on the Emperor’s New Clothes, except with global trade and nuclear weapons. The PSEi gets the privilege of being one of the first stock markets to process the weekend’s developments, as the US futures market won’t even open until later in the trading day today. My bet is that it’s a somewhat muted “risk off” (selling equities) kind of day. Let’s see how people are thinking. 
 

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