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Germany opens its wallet, and bonds tumble

German 10-year Bund yields jumped by roughly 30 basis points in a single day after Berlin announced a framework to reform its constitutional debt brake ('Schuldenbremse').

The recession forecast caused by gold bars

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model dropped abruptly to an annualised −2.8 per cent for the first quarter, and markets took fright.

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico go live

After weeks of stays and diplomatic manoeuvring, the 25 per cent tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico have taken full legal effect, along with a duty on Chinese goods that has been raised to 20 per cent.

Nvidia's margins slip

Nvidia reported fourth-quarter revenue of $39.3 billion, evidence that demand for its chips is still enormous.

Markets swap inflation fear for growth fear

Ten-year Treasury yields have fallen back to between 4.3 and 4.4 per cent over the past fortnight, as markets stopped worrying mainly about inflation and started worrying about growth.

January inflation strikes again

Consumer prices rose 0.5 per cent in January from December, lifting the annual rate to 3.0 per cent and reminding markets that the start of the year is a bad time to bet on calm inflation.

Why Trump counts VAT as a tariff

The administration now formally classes foreign Value-Added Taxes (VAT) as discriminatory non-tariff barriers, and that classification underpins much of its new trade doctrine.

Valentine's Day: America and Europe's trade breakup

Washington picked Valentine's Day to publish its Reciprocal Trade Memorandum, a cold message to its main trading partners across the Atlantic.

Steel tariffs squeeze American manufacturers

The White House has put a 25 per cent tariff on imported steel and aluminium and scrapped the exemptions that long covered friendly suppliers.

Why the dollar isn't rising on tariffs

The US Dollar Index has stalled near 108, down from cyclical highs above 110, even as the administration's trade threats turn into actual decrees.

Super Bowl: $8m ads, gloomy shoppers

Fox charged a record $8 million per 30-second slot for Super Bowl LIX, a sign that companies will still pay handsomely for a live audience of that size.

600,000 jobs erased from the record

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has taken nearly 600,000 jobs out of the 2024 payroll count in its annual benchmark revision to non-farm payrolls.

Tariffs on, tariffs off

A threatened 25 per cent levy on all Canadian and Mexican imports was called off at the last moment after talks on border enforcement, while a 10 per cent baseline tariff on Chinese goods went ahead on schedule.

Big Tech keeps spending after DeepSeek

Meta raised its 2025 capex forecast to $60–$65 billion in late January, and Microsoft said annual infrastructure spending would approach $80 billion.

Lunar New Year: DeepSeek and China's tech comeback

DeepSeek's shock sends investors running to bonds

Nvidia lost $589 billion of market value on 27 January, the largest one-day fall for any company in history.

How do you measure chaos?

Text-based Economic Policy Uncertainty indices have shot up. Markets are good at pricing known economic risks, but a policy regime that keeps changing is beyond the usual econometric models.

Trump's first day: no tariffs, yet

Donald Trump was inaugurated without the sweeping tariff orders that markets had spent weeks bracing for.

Wall Street banks bet on deregulation

JPMorgan Chase earned a record net income of nearly $58 billion in 2024, the high point of a long boom in net interest income.

Britain's borrowing costs hit a 27-year high

The yield on British 30-year government bonds has risen above 5.47 per cent, its highest in twenty-seven years, and the Treasury in Whitehall has noticed.

Great jobs data, bad news for bonds

Non-farm payrolls rose by 256,000 in December, a heavy blow to bond investors betting on quick rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

Why America borrows like it's in a crisis

The United States ended fiscal year 2024 with a budget deficit of $1.83 trillion, or 6.4 per cent of GDP, at a time of peacetime full employment.

Biden blocks the US Steel deal

The White House has formally blocked Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion takeover of United States Steel, putting domestic industrial politics ahead of cross-border capital.

New Year: 2025 comes down to one word — tariffs

For most American finance chiefs, planning for 2025 comes down to one number they cannot hedge: the tariff rate.

The debt ceiling is back

The suspension of the US debt ceiling agreed in May 2023 ends on 1 January 2025.

New Year's Eve: The dollar's big year

The US Dollar Index (DXY) ends 2024 up more than seven per cent, beating major developed and emerging-market currencies alike.

How much inflation could tariffs add?

Wall Street economists finishing their 2025 outlooks are spending most of their time on tariffs.

Boxing Day: Why money markets get jumpy at year-end

The Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) has started jumping about again as the year ends.

Christmas: A lump of coal from the Fed

Markets hoping for more festive generosity from the Federal Reserve found a lump of coal in their stockings.

The Fed cuts, then takes back half of next year's cuts

The Federal Reserve ended 2024 by cutting rates 25 basis points, to 4.25–4.50 per cent, as expected.

Honda and Nissan: merging to survive

Honda and Nissan have confirmed they are in early talks about a merger, which could also take in Mitsubishi Motors.

The Fed is about to cut, and sound tough doing it

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates by 25 basis points at its December meeting, as markets have priced.

The inflation that won't budge

Core consumer prices rose 0.3 per cent in November, the fourth monthly reading in a row at that pace, leaving annual core inflation at 3.3 per cent.

China finally promises to loosen up

After a Politburo meeting on 9 December, Beijing changed its official monetary stance from 'prudent' to 'moderately loose', the boldest shift in its policy language for a decade.

US Steel's deal is in limbo

France now borrows at higher rates than Greece

On 28 November the yield on French ten-year government bonds (OATs) rose above Greece’s borrowing cost for the first time in modern history.

Cyber Monday: The hidden debt of buy now, pay later

Online spending on Cyber Monday hit a record $13.3 billion. The number retail finance analysts noticed was smaller: close to $1 billion of it was paid for with 'Buy Now, Pay Later' (BNPL) plans, the most ever for deferred consumer credit.

Black Friday: Shoppers race to beat the tariffs

The last mile of inflation is the hardest

Core PCE prices rose at an annualised 2.8 per cent in October, the fourth month in a row that core inflation has stuck near three per cent.

Thanksgiving: Why eggs cost more this year

The average cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for ten fell five per cent to $58.08 this year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual survey.

Trump threatens Mexico and Canada

Donald Trump threatened on 25 November to put a twenty-five per cent tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada on his first day in office, tying it to border enforcement and drug trafficking.

Companies are stockpiling before the tariffs hit

American companies are stockpiling. Purchasing managers expect heavy import tariffs soon after the inauguration in January, and corporate treasurers are trying to get ahead of them by bringing forward orders from Asia and Europe.

Can a stronger dollar cancel out tariffs?

The US Dollar Index (DXY) has climbed back towards 107 since the election, and trade economists are asking an old textbook question.

How low will the Fed go?

The Federal Reserve cut rates by 25 basis points on 7 November, taking the federal funds rate to 4.50–4.75 per cent.

A 60% tariff is a tax on Americans

Donald Trump has formally restated his plan for a sixty per cent tariff on all imports from China, a shock without modern parallel for US trade.

Singles' Day: China fixes its local debt, not its shoppers

Beijing unveiled a RMB 10 trillion ($1.4 trillion) debt-swap programme on the eve of Singles' Day, meant to help local governments refinance hidden off-balance-sheet debt over five years.

The winners from a Republican sweep

The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) rose more than thirteen per cent on the day after Donald Trump's election win, the best session for regional bank shares in years.

Election night for the bond market

The ten-year Treasury yield jumped sixteen basis points to 4.44 per cent overnight as returns confirmed Donald Trump's clear victory and a Republican sweep of Congress.

Diwali: India's record IPO rush

Hyundai Motor India raised ₹27,870 crore ($3.3 billion) this Diwali season, the largest IPO in the country's corporate history.

Just 12,000 jobs: what storms and strikes hide

Non-farm payrolls rose by just 12,000 in October. A casual reader might have taken that as a sign the economy was falling off a cliff.