Summary: Today - a look at the market remaining in complacency mode, boosted by a drop in yields and later by Broadcom's apparent coming collaboration with OpenAI on new chips. Also, new geopolitical developments, speculating on coming Trump announcement later today (including on a possible revaluation of US gold reserves), earnings coming up next week, the US jobs data today, a general sense of foreboding that something big is about to happen to this market, and much more. Today's pod hosted by Saxo Global Head of Macro Strategy John J. Hardy.
Listen to the full episode now or follow the Saxo Market Call on your favorite podcast app.
As promised on today's pod, please see highlights of the macro calendar event risks for the week ahead:
China’s mercantilist model - it has run out of road.
This great piece looks at how China’s mercantilist model has not only helped drive the increasingly adversarial relationship with the US, but is possibly also untenable for many emerging markets as well Can China ever rebalance its economy, or is the CCP DNA incapable of this shift?
On the why of the US revaluing its gold reserves
A Kitco article runs through some of the rationale for the US to revalue its gold holdings from USD 42 per ounce to the current market price - which would put its value at close to USD 900 billion. This could seed a massive fund for national priorities and impact long interest rates among other impacts. The Fed itself recently issued a paper on doing the same, essentially providing a roadmap for revaluing US gold reserves to create liquidity/funds and without selling the underlying assets.
Downtime link for the weekend: boost your brain and take a sound bath.
FT article (Sorry, paywall) discussing Why Beethoven is good for your brain. The article quotes noted author and neurologist Oliver Sacks in claiming that an anatomist can easily differentiate the brain of a professional musician from all other brain types. His book Musicophilia is now on my reading list after reading this article. That reminded me of a recent Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast episode with a “sonic shaman” Koko T. Bear. It all sounds absurd until you start to listen the example “soundbath” the guy makes. Definitely something I will be pursuing for downtime in the future - sans the distracting podcasters comments, of course. BTW, a couple of my favorite piano pieces are Scriabin’s Etude, opus 8 # 12. I first heard Horowitz’s standard-setting version - the dynamic shifts from almost destroying the piano with his endless power to sudden pianissimo are amazing. I was blown away when looking for these clips on YouTube to discover that there is an incredible recording of Scriabin himself playing the Etude: pre-1915 as that was the year he died!. That insanely talented composer had an interesting brain for sure, as he experienced visual phenomena whenever he heard music, a case of synesthesia. BTW - a more up-to-date version for better audio is the one of teenager Yevgeny Kissin, no slouch himself.
With perfect hindsight, this one should have been a slam dunk for at least a quarter - the viral advertising campaign and MAGA adopting the model/actor as one of their own due to her registration as a Republican (she never explicitly was out voicing support of Trump/Republican polities) likely drove a better than expected results, even if sales did slip slightly. As with Macy’s profiled yesterday, it doesn’t take much of a beat to juice the share price when expectations are low.
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