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New Year's Eve: How the dollar lost its shine

The Dollar Index ended the year down 9 per cent, the greenback's worst twelve months since the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

2025 in five charts: gold up, dollar down

The US Dollar Index finished 2025 down about 9 per cent, and spot gold rose more than 65 per cent, a historic gain.

Boxing Day: Holiday shopping with missing data

Shops opened for the Boxing Day sales at the end of a holiday season run almost entirely without official data.

The inflation data with a missing month

Headline inflation eased to 2.7 per cent year-on-year in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Christmas: The boom that arrived late

Wall Street got an early present this holiday season: a delayed government report showing third-quarter gross domestic product growing at 4.3 per cent.

A 4.3% boom, reported late

The US economy grew at an annualised 4.3 per cent in the third quarter, according to gross domestic product figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Paramount goes hostile

Paramount Global made a hostile all-cash bid of $30 a share for Warner Bros Discovery on 19 December, an open attempt to wreck the all-stock merger Netflix had already agreed.

Japan's last cheap-money trade

Money-market swaps put a 90 per cent chance on a 25-basis-point rise at the Bank of Japan's 19 December meeting, and currency desks are getting ready.

One cut, three dissents

The Federal Open Market Committee cut the federal funds target by 25 basis points to 3.50–3.75 per cent at its last meeting of 2025, and formally started $40 billion a month of Reserve Management Purchases.

QE by another name?

Eight days after quantitative tightening officially ended on 1 December, the Federal Reserve said it would buy $40 billion of Treasury bills a month under a permanent programme of 'Reserve Management Purchases' (RMPs).

Netflix bets big on Warner Bros

Japan's bond yields hit 17-year highs

Benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yields jumped to 1.8 per cent, a level last seen seventeen years ago.

Cyber Monday: Record spending, more buy now, pay later

Americans spent more than $13 billion online on Cyber Monday, a record according to Adobe Analytics.

One speech that flipped the Fed odds

A single speech by John Williams, president of the New York Fed, reset market expectations for Federal Reserve policy on 21 November.

Black Friday: Buy now, get a refund later?

Thanksgiving: Beef, tariffs and the holiday table

Thanksgiving tables offered a live test of how fast prices respond when a tariff is removed.

Trump cuts tariffs on beef and coffee

On 14 November the White House abruptly exempted imported beef and raw coffee beans from all border tariffs.

Nvidia's $57bn quarter doesn't end the bubble debate

Nvidia reported $57 billion of revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, another huge number and comfortably ahead of Wall Street's consensus forecast.

AI's biggest spenders feel the credit squeeze

The primary corporate bond market is struggling to digest a flood of debt from the companies spending most on artificial intelligence, and institutional credit portfolios are full.

The longest shutdown's lasting cost

The longest federal government shutdown in modern American history has ended after forty-three days.

What if the tariffs have to be refunded?

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on 5 November in the landmark challenge to the administration's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose across-the-board tariffs.

Singles' Day: A truce, but will China shop?

China's annual Singles' Day shopping festival ended on an unusually subdued note, a sign of malaise in the world's second-largest consumer economy.

Meta borrows $30bn for AI

Meta Platforms has sold $30 billion of investment-grade bonds in several tranches, a deal of a size rarely seen, to pay for its artificial intelligence spending plans.

America and China call a truce, again

On 4 November Washington and Beijing surprised markets once again with a broad trade de-escalation, rolling back punitive tariffs and suspending retaliatory export controls.

The Fed stops shrinking its balance sheet

At its October meeting the Federal Open Market Committee cut interest rates by 25 basis points, as expected, taking the federal funds target to 3.75–4.00 per cent.

Halloween: The scariest balance sheets in AI

Nvidia's market capitalization passed $5 trillion on 29 October, making it the world's most valuable company.

One inflation report in a data blackout

The federal government shutdown, now several weeks old, has halted most of the statistical agencies.

The AI money loop

Look closely at the venture deals financing the artificial intelligence boom and a circular pattern appears, one that recalls the worst speculative habits of the dot-com era.

Money markets flash a warning

In mid-October the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) kept printing above the Interest on Reserve Balances (IORB) rate.

Diwali: The rupee hits a record low

The Indian rupee fell to a record low of 88.8 to the US dollar as millions celebrated Diwali.

Are there more cockroaches in bank balance sheets?

Zions Bancorporation surprised investors on its third-quarter earnings call with a $50 million charge-off on two commercial real estate loans.

China's rare earth counterpunch

On 9 October, ahead of a scheduled bilateral summit, Beijing imposed sweeping export restrictions, effective immediately, on specialised heavy rare earth refining equipment, sintered neodymium magnets and advanced metallurgy software.

First Brands and the debt nobody saw

First Brands, a big car-parts maker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Tricolor, a subprime auto lender, had already collapsed into a Chapter 7 liquidation weeks earlier.

Japan's new leader weakens the yen

The yen sold off after Japan elected new political leadership, sending USD/JPY back towards 150, a level traders watch closely.

Flying blind: no jobs report

The first Friday of October came and went without an Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of the rare gaps of its kind in modern monetary history.

A shutdown would leave the Fed flying blind

Congress is heading for a 1 October funding deadline with no compromise in sight, and the Federal Reserve is bracing for the consequences.

100% tariffs on drugs, unless you build here

Gold breaks $3,700

Spot gold broke through $3,700 an ounce and was trading near $3,750, one of the fastest bullion rallies in modern financial history.

The Fed cuts, cautiously

The Federal Open Market Committee cut the federal funds target by 25 basis points to a range of 4.00 to 4.25 per cent, the first move in a new easing cycle.

Trump's man joins the Fed

The Senate confirmed Stephen Miran to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on 15 September.

Oracle's $455bn order book

Oracle's remaining performance obligations (RPO), the measure of contracted but unbilled customer backlog that software analysts trust most, rose by 36 per cent year-on-year to a record $455 billion.

911,000 jobs that never existed

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its preliminary annual benchmark revision that payrolls in the twelve months to March 2025 had been overstated by 911,000 jobs.

Anniversary: Three years, what we got right

This column was launched in September 2022, and three full years on it has checked its main macroeconomic calls against what actually happened.

Just 22,000 jobs

The US economy added just 22,000 non-farm jobs in August, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 per cent.

Appeals court rules against the tariffs

Labor Day: Hiring has stalled

The American labour market reached Labor Day in an uncomfortable state, with hiring largely frozen but few large layoffs.

Nvidia's China problem

Nvidia reported revenue of $46.7 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, another very strong result.

Trump moves to fire a Fed governor

On 25 August President Donald Trump moved to remove Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, before her term expires, and she has said she will fight the dismissal.

Powell opens the door to cuts

Jerome Powell used his annual speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium to signal that the Federal Reserve is preparing to cut interest rates.

Switzerland's 39% shock

A 39 per cent tariff on Swiss exports to the United States took effect on 7 August, and it caught Switzerland off guard.