On Global Markets

If the United States government were an asset manager, one could imagine it adopting quite a smug and self-satisfied tone when it penned its latest monthly update for investors. As CNBC reported yesterday, the government’s chunky 10% stake in Intel, acquired in late August, is comfortably in the black. Shares of U.S. chipmaker Intel climbed […] 

Geopolitical competition is increasingly shaping the global economy. And nowhere is this competition more intense than in the case of computer chips. As the Center for Responsible Statecraft noted in 2024, one can – arguably – date the present ‘chip war’ back to 2022. In October of 2022, President Biden launched America’s “chip war,” imposing […] 

According to the Rodium Group’s Climate Outlook, between now and 2100, the OECD nations will collectively emit a cumulative 616.2 billion metric tons of CO2, out of a global total of 2,734 billion metric tons. In other words, developing and emerging economies will be responsible for 82% of carbon emissions over the rest of this […] 

The Federal Reserve’s independence is under threat. Or at least the level of independence the institution currently enjoys is coming under serious challenge. President Trump has been absolutely clear that he believes policy rates should be lower. In some regards, this is nothing new. Throughout his first term in office, the President continually took to […] 

For monetary policymakers, the current situation facing the US economy is, in the words of Jerome Powell, ‘challenging’. While there is clearly some inflationary pressure building, the jobs market is showing signs of weakening. That is a tricky divergence for the Federal Reserve to handle with the two sides of the dual mandate – price […] 

The last On Global Markets column looked at Chairman Powell’s remarks to the Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers and considered how the Federal Reserve was navigating the tough combination of a seemingly slowing economy coupled with tariff-driven price pressures. It closed by casting forwards and noting that a Fed Board reshaped by the current […] 

Chairman Powell’s much anticipated remarks took financial markets by surprise last week. Judging by the rapid price movements after his comments hit the tape, traders had been expecting less decisive steer on the direction of interest rates. The yield on the policy-sensitive two-year US government bond fell by almost ten basis points while a widely-watched […] 

A couple of months ago, your columnist noted that the US economy was living in the pause; the 90-day period during which the Liberation Day tariffs had been suspended, but during which it was unclear exactly what would come afterwards. It seemed unlikely that the Federal Reserve would move policy until greater clarity on trade […] 

The latest non-farm payrolls data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was clearly not received well in the White House. Unusually large back revisions to the figures for June and May suggest that the jobs market has slowed more sharply than originally believed over the last three months.  President Trump’s response was to immediately […] 

Warfare, especially the sort of prolonged fighting against a near-peer adversary that has characterised the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, is a very costly business. Those costs are measured in both human suffering and financial terms. More than three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its own casualties have likely topped one million, whilst Ukraine […]