Morning Musings 7.11.25
“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”— Carl Jung
Is it just me, or does it sometimes feel like we are Wile E. Coyote to you as well?
‘Coincidence does not equal correlation.’ A truism which is actually..true. So, despite my Brooklyn cynicism, I’m not going to simply assume that politicians trade ahead of votes or decisions, despite the inordinate amounts of money they amass in their investment accounts. Perhaps they are just savvy, or prescient. Gifted money managers even. Underappreciated Warren Buffett/Steve Cohens. Despite massive futures and futures trades ( see: Brazilian Real earlier this week) in the right direction almost immediately before each of Trump’s policy announcements or reversals, I will not jump to the conclusion- inescapable as it seems- that front-running is present and even a feature rather than a bug of current policy-making. Nope. Not gunna do it. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks.😉
ICE now has a budget greater than the national defense budgets of all but 4 countries, and greater than the USMC. $48b is slated to be used to build new prisons under its control. A federalized military police answering only to the President. Forget everything else in the OBBB- this is THE big deal and has the potential to change what ‘America’ is.
Remember when people would say things like , ‘posse comitatus’. how droll :)
President Trump announced a 35% tariff on Canadian imports starting August 1st and signaled plans to impose blanket tariffs of 15% to 20% on most other trading partners. The European Union is expected to receive formal notification of the applicable tariff rates shortly, likely later today. The yield on Germany’s 10-year Bund rose above 2.68%, its highest in nearly two months.
‘Vietnam’s leadership was caught off guard by US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that it agreed to a 20% tariff, and the Southeast Asian nation is still seeking to lower the rate, according to people familiar with the matter.’ https://bloom.bg/4nOnUxM
For all the "Sturm und Drang", the 30-year yield has not really moved.
Contrarian Alert!! Positioning in the Russell 2000 is at its shortest since July 2024
SP500 dividend yield close to all-time lows.
Was Twain right about history?
Crowded, but lower than the beginning of 2025
“No S.W.A.K., Just Flak: Trump’s Tariff Strategy Update” (MacroMicro)
Go long extension cords! From Mike Tornton on Substack:”ChatGPT uses 10x more electricity per search than Google. Training GPT-4 consumed as much power as 1,000 American homes use in a year. And that's just one model from one company. AI is going to break the electrical grid. Microsoft is buying old nuclear plants to power data centers. Google's electricity usage jumped 50% last year. Amazon is building private power generation for AWS facilities.Everyone talks about AI disrupting jobs, but the real disruption might be power shortages. When data centers compete with cities for electricity, guess who loses?”
Here. Comes. Threads.
