Executive Summary: The Iran war has tightened the market for aluminum, driving up prices and benefitting US producers. Jackie looks at the market dynamics and what Alcoa execs had to say about the unexpected demand they’re seeing. … Alcoa is

Executive Summary: The private-credit market is inherently illiquid. Recently, it has needed to gate redemptions, making investors who want access to their funds wait. Vocal retail investors have reporters questioning whether this could trigger a 2008-style financial crisis. That’s not

Executive Summary: Taiwan’s economy could be collateral damage in the Iran war, reports William. The US’s geopolitical ambitions might embolden China to make good on its pledge to bring Taiwan back under its wing, especially if President Trump doesn’t offer

Executive Summary: The unprecedented oil-supply shock caused by war in the Middle East has crushed investors’ former expectations for subdued inflation and dovish central banks’ actions. The Bond Vigilantes are repricing yield curves worldwide, especially at the short end, in

Executive Summary: Helium prices have inflated after one of the world’s largest helium producers, in Qatar, halted production for the duration of the war. Jackie examines the new helium market dynamics and discusses the ramifications for helium-dependent industries (like semiconductors)

Executive Summary: Private equity sponsors are having difficulty selling portfolio companies and returning distributions to investors. Melissa explores the signs that the private equity market may struggle in 2026 and why the window of opportunity investors enjoyed back in 2021

Executive Summary: China’s annual GDP growth goal is set at a low level that still might not be attainable, William reports. China has a two-speed economy: Exports are growing like gangbusters, while domestic growth is languishing. Insecure consumers, collectively gripping

Executive Summary: Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to replace Fed Chair Powell, no doubt will lean toward dovish policy-making, under pressure from the President to convince the rest of the FOMC to err on the side of easing. But the

Executive Summary: The S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary sector has been battling a trifecta of challenges, and only a couple of its industry indexes have escaped ytd declines. Jackie distills what the managements of several affected companies had to say on

Executive Summary: Retail investors have initiated a run on alternative asset funds focused on the private credit market. Their confidence in the asset class is shot. Melissa discusses three weaknesses in the retail segment of this market—endemic fraud, poor underwriting,

Executive Summary: For Europe, the energy supply shock resulting from the war in Iran makes a deteriorating industrial production outlook even worse. William reports that the risk to output may even be greater than what Europe endured in 2022, when

Executive Summary: The energy and financial markets are taking the war in the Middle East remarkably well, all things considered. Investors seem to believe that the war will be short-lived and perhaps are focusing on the bright side: The lost

Executive Summary: The Iran war puts US farmers in dire straits, as it has been spiking the cost of fertilizer. But the war has been a boon for the stocks of domestic fertilizer companies. Jackie discusses the war impacts on

Executive Summary: While the headlines have stoked fears about AI-related layoffs, Melissa reports that there are also less-heralded job openings arising from Boomer retirements and the creation of new AI-related positions. White-collar workers may need retraining, and entry-level workers may

Executive Summary: The Middle East war is throwing central banks around the world for a loop as they try to chart monetary policy paths for their economies amid new stagflation and supply-chain risks. William examines what the war might mean

Executive Summary: With the US suddenly thick in the fog of war, Dr Ed discusses the collateral effects on the US economy and stock market. Spiking oil prices may precipitate a stock market correction rather than a bear market, but

Executive Summary: Last weekend’s attack on Iran by the US and Israel has unleashed a vengeance that’s disrupting global energy commerce. Iran has bombed nearby countries’ oil and gas production facilities and threatened to burn ships in the Strait of

Executive Summary: FOMC officials agree: AI proliferation is a seismic macroeconomic force that will impact GDP growth, inflation, and the labor market. But they’re divided on the precise impacts and timing. Today, Melissa reads between the lines of Fed officials’

Executive Summary: China is on the losing end of President Trump’s foreign policy moves in Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland—all strategically important to China’s economy. How President Xi responds over the next few weeks will be critical to his legacy. William

Executive Summary: Saturday’s military attack on Iran by the US and Israel that killed Iran’s leader and 40 top officials is likely to push oil prices higher this week. However, in our short-war scenario, oil prices should fall in the

Executive Summary: Projections of a collapse in consumer spending as Americans lose jobs to AI en masse spooked the stock market recently—but perhaps unnecessarily. Jackie explains why that catastrophic scenario may be unlikely. … Also: A look at how various

Executive Summary: The Reserve Bank of Australia has been raising interest rates, with more hikes likely to come, to battle the highest rate of inflation among developed countries. William looks at the source of the problem and its global ramifications.

Executive Summary: The US economy has performed remarkably well this decade to date despite multiple unusual challenges that would have felled a less resilient economy. Widespread recession expectations failed to pan out repeatedly. The pattern continues, with today’s recession alarmists

Executive Summary: Asian economies that would have been hard-pressed to thrive under President Trump’s tariffs can celebrate the Supreme Court’s ruling that they’re unconstitutional. While that’s a net positive for these and other affected nations, William explains, tariff-related uncertainties remain.

Executive Summary: They may be magnificent, but they’re not invincible. The Mag-7 has been beaten down into correction territory, but the group still wields outsized influence over stock-market performance by virtue of its still huge market-cap share. Jackie examines the

Executive Summary: The AI innovations emerging from China are hot on the heels of Western rivals. William discusses Alibaba’s new AI model with agentic capabilities, its implications for the software industry, and China’s political paradox: President Xi wants to

Executive Summary: European leaders’ annual meeting in Belgium yielded a plan to increase Europe’s global competitiveness: One Market, One Europe. William discusses the pressures that have steeled leaders’ determination to unite the member countries into a single market, the three

Executive Summary: From AI-phoria to AI-phobia: Jackie reports on the recent shift in investors’ attitudes toward artificial intelligence. Its vast disruptive potential is akin to the Internet’s, dislodging some companies from their market positions and catapulting others into new spaces.

Executive Summary: With a huge snap election victory behind her, Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi effectively has a political mandate to run with her fiscal stimulus plans, plans that the Bond Vigilantes won’t condone. William discusses the high-stakes gambit being

Executive Summary: It’s a start, maybe: China’s President Xi Jinping finally has a plan to stabilize the property crisis that has hobbled the nation’s economy since 2020. But it’s limited in scope, William reports; more aggressive reforms are in order.