Social media is deliberately addictive? Who knew? While markets barely reacted to yesterday’s Product-Liability award against Meta and Alphabet in California, the growing pushback against Big Tech will see valuation multiples diminish over the long run as increased regulation becomes inevitable. Perhaps it’s time to look at how Tobacco firms have evolved to understand the future value of Social Media parasites?
The last two weeks have been fascinating. Iran increasingly looks a strategic blunder by Trump in the wider global hegemonic struggle between the USA and China. It increases the likelihood of instability, trade and economic disruption and the threat of kinetic conflict. Boy Scout time: Be Prepared.
Suddenly global markets are reeling – waking up to the reality of the unwinnable Iran War. What will a dramatic shift in sentiment mean for stocks, bonds and commodities as stagflation beckons, and Trump finds himself isolated? There is a growing risk of a liquidity shock to global markets.
While global markets are fixated on the Gulf, cast a weather eye on the Eastern Pacific where a Super El Nino climate event is developing. It could lead to Climate Whiplash events in terms of flood, storms and drought, food inflation and increasing migration tensions. It never rains, but it pours – and that’s not necessarily good for the most important commodity on the planet: Water!
The War in Iran is a kinetic feature of the economic/hegemonic struggle between the USA and China. President Trump will lose because his Iran war is unwinnable. Iran won’t lose because it does doesn’t have to win. That’s a recipe for a forever war, and a definition of asymmetric warfare. The likely winner of a wider Economic War will be China. Energy and Supply Chains will determine the future.
Pretty much as was expected Donald Trump has declared his war almost over. Its not. It has destabilised the global economy. What might be roiled in its wake? One area to watch is how a liquidity default-storm in Private Credit could infect global bond and equity markets, causing a global market crisis.
Global disruption – how likely is it to end quickly? Trump’s objective was to install a regime that will do his bidding in Iran. The appointment of Khamenei v2.0, the lack of a clear opposition, or defectors, makes a swift closure increasingly less likely. Global markets are pricing for a long, destabilising war with rising inflationary and geopolitical volatility.
How swiftly the Iran conflict is resolved, and the Straits of Hormuz reopen, is critical for global markets. Whatever excuses are being bandied about to explain the US attack – it’s all about what new Administration emerges in Iran. Will it be prepared to deal with Trump on Trump’s terms, or will it choose to fight a long war of attrition?
As the US and Israel attack Iran, confirming the Fire Horse threat of escalating conflict risks, do we also face a second social threat from AI triggering widespread social and wealth-inequality protests? Does 2026 risk becoming a double whammy hit on market sentiment and confidence?
Does the steepness of the US yield curve tell us the US Economy is about to boom, or inflation is about to sink the Treasury markets? To figure out which, you need to interrogate the witnesses and look at what the evidence is telling us.
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