May 9…)
“Never floss with a stranger.” Joan rivers
In the news
A slew of CB principals are on the wires today talking about their rates and policies: China, India, Peru, Colombia, and more. There will be an endless cast of FOMC speakers offering their insights all day, and into the evening.
Bloomberg opines the global trend to disuse the dollar is rising, showing a chart of SWIFT payments in Yuan as evidence.
Generally, everything in the press is as it always has been: Trump is bad, China is good, Europe is good, Putin is bad, Canada is a victim, Israel is Israel. Lesser countries are simply passengers and backseat drivers. Whatever headline you read, swipe into a Google browser, and the same “news” item will appear from multiple sources, especially if you subscribe to services like Axios and Bloomberg.
In financial news, various banks are hiring and firing each other’s senior people. UBS forbade flying business class to China due to a sharp drop in deal flow. B of A’s Hartnett joins JPM and PTJ in the view that equities “will fade” as tariff deals get booked. I tend to agree. This tariff reset cannot be “win-win” and achieve Trump’s mission to balance the US deficit. Someone has to lose.
It is an ordinary Friday in the middle of May, 2025, and apart from the names on the place cards, the world feels a lot like it did on any other Friday in May, ever and anon. There are a smattering of military kerfuffles, gold is still an enigmatic nemesis, stocks, rates, and commodities are still perfectly functional. Despite all the finger-wagging punditry and shrill insistence that the world is going to hell. It’s not going anywhere.
In the markets
Oil is up again in London, so it’s not a mystery who is buying—the Middle East, I think. There was good follow-through in New York yesterday, but like gold, it seems the bid side of oil is in foreign markets.
The other conclusions are simple. No one wants $50 oil, yet. A hard rejection at $55/barrel twice is enough to make the point. However, there are no technical indications the major trend is changing; open interest is static, and volume is limited. If someone wants to pay > $62/barrel, I plan to say, “Thank you.”
Next up this morning, checking down the dollar, gold being gold, bicoin and stocks from a high level and some thoughts what our money will look like soon, in the vibe.
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