The equity rally to yet new all-time-highs feels unconvincing. Expectations of inflationary pressures easing and a return to upside growth are not shared by bond markets which are concerned at signals of higher borrowing costs as governments fail to rein in fiscal programmes. A fall in oil prices will help but won’t solve anything.

The threat list to markets has suddenly expanded – plague, protests and increasing signs the AI boom is a damp squib. However, Sporting Investment remains a hot sector – which may require some tweaking as the full implications of the Man City financial scandal emerge. Durable sporting value requires sound corporate governance, managing the money to ensure competitive integrity, a growing and excited audience, and a clear flow of players from the grass-roots to the big leagues.

This morning something different. A review of Robin Wigglesworth’s new book, A Fabulous Debt, on the history of the Bond Markets. Great read and absorbing. It’s a broad brush explaining how bonds have evolved and developed. Bond markets guide far more than just interest rates – they are power, political stability, and can drive market instability. In Bonds there is truth. The book leave interested readers wanting to know more in terms of the consequences of the Bond Markets and mechanisms.

The French Bond market threatens to become a crisis as yields widen and its’ politics look increasingly a zero-sum game. While we’ve been watching the antics in DC and the price of oil due to Iran, we’ve missed how swiftly a new European debt crisis has been brewing. If it deepens, it won’t be a simple repeat of 2010-12, which nearly crushed banks and triggered defaults. Europe’s second largest economy in crisis, and dispute with Frankfurt, could trigger even more massive instabilities.

Defence has become the hot new sector, but investors need to understand the geopolitical reality, military requirements, the need for adaptation, and how the battlespace is changing. Defence needs to connect capital to warfighting capabilities that can be deployed now, adapted swiftly, and manufactured in unprecedented volume. The most effective way for the West to win is to demonstrate the will and ability to do so – which is the most likely way to deter our enemies from attacking.

Markets are worrying about a short-term interest-rate/inflation triggered correction, but something deeper may be approaching – a convergence between market, economic and political failures. It may be time to hedge against consensus expectations of “it will all be fine” and focus on factors like national resilience in terms of what nations thrive and which won’t!

The current summit between Trump and Xi will likely become little more than a footnote in the history of the end of one economic empire and the emergence of the next. Xi has patience and has visited DC to let Trump do his thing, while he seeks time and stability to firmly establish China’s dominance. He is guided by the Sun Tzu dictum “Never interrupt your enemy while they are making mistakes.”

If there is a 10% chance AI is going to kill us all, then that’s probably bad news for bond markets. There are a lots of things that threaten us, but fortunately most of them are quite unlikely. A 1 in 10 chance we’re all toast is not. Global markets will probably choose to look the other way, but how would your own investment decisions change if you knew the Terminator is about to knock on the door?

Friday is the 25th anniversary of 9/11. It was the worst of days. It changed the World forever. How has it changed America and what are the risks it raises for the future? Who won? America is a great and powerful nation – but is going through a painful period. What did Osama Bin Laden’s carefully calculated terror do to America’s future? The scars run deep. Who won?

Trump is the most unrestrained US president – yet is supported by the richest and most successful men in America even as we watch him upend everything the USA once stood for. What if Trump is just the front-man for a Regime that is changing the World - breaking traditional relationships and alliances to create a stronger America as China threatens to supersede it? Europe is struggling with the new rules of America’s primacy, the end of the Nato Era, the emergence of a new American hemisphere, and how nations should relate to the new Imperial USA. How these will all play in the Great Game to be Global Hegemon is as yet unclear, but the world is changing fast.