DAX, Cac40, S&P500

• The Bloomberg Magnificent 7 index, including the dominant tech groups, is down 16%, and has just dropped below its 200-day moving average for the first time in more than two years..

 Euro

• German stocks and bund yields are climbing after chancellor in waiting Friedrich Merz said the country will unlock hundreds of billions of euros for defense and infrastructure investments in a dramatic shift that upends its ironclad controls on government borrowing.
• The Euro accounts for 20% of global official reseves. The Dollar over 57%. 

• Could US dominance over global debt markets change?

Notes today 

• Impending tariffs on Canada and Mexico risk driving up US car prices by as much as $12,000, further squeezing consumers and wreaking havoc across the intricate web of automotive supply lines spanning the continent.
• Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China could force American consumers to pay an average of $1,200 more per year, a prominent economic thinktank warns. 

• Tesla sales slid by nearly 50% across Europe at the start of 2025.

 

• Israel halts all humanitarian aid and other imports to Gaza - again!

• Rheinmetall (RNMBY) European / German defense company  is doing rather well.

 

• The US is drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief as Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow ..

• Trump, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands..

• Investor gloom is picking up..

Problem with these notes: some tend to run up against a deeply rooted feature of human cognition - the desire not to think about anything unpleasant…Sorry about that.

"Everything will be all right. And, even if it won't be, we'll have the consolation of having lived honest lives." Alexei Navalny