Blain’s Morning Porridge Jan 21st 2025: It is Done. What Happens Next?
“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly..”
Yesterday is done and dusted. What counts is what happens next! Markets will move on from the election and return to pricing real events and their consequences. The first 100 days will be no honeymoon. Get set for “interesting” market moves, events and plenty of volatility.
Was it just me? I am the only person reading through the headlines this morning wondering why I am surprised that I’m even slightly surprised? There was nothing we did not expect – maybe there was just more of it than we expected. I listened but heard little as the echoes rang and rang. Now it’s happened what’s the point in reacting. Saying nothing is just easier. Say nothing. It happened. Thus, the world is changed utterly.
Give the man some credit. Yesterday was the culmination of a remarkable recovery by President Donald J Trump. What an operator. Yesterday he basked in the glory of his political second coming. Arrayed in front of him were all the levers of power: Control of House and Senate. The Supreme Court at his call to back his bidding. The richest men in America arrayed behind his family supporting him. A room full of his supporters. The vanquished enemy seated with rictus grins on the other side.
It was a triumph. One that Trump won – fair and square. It was also Trump at the zenith of his power. With that power comes accountability and the requirement to deliver. Every single day will now chip away at that power. Events will not singly, but in mighty battalions come. From today, Trump faces relentless reality.
What will we remember about yesterday? The declaration of War on Panama? The false claim America first split the Atom – nope, it was Ernest Rutherford in Manchester England? Or the challenge to plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars, and Elon Musk’s childlike glee? (Now that I would dearly love to see happen.) Fact is.. we won’t remember much in just a few weeks. Memories will be overtaken by events as they occur. And, boy, will they occur!
Already there are a few cracks in the edifice.
First up is Bitcoin – we were told it would be a pillar of the second Trump presidency. It took a 7% spanking from an all-time high of $109, 350 because Trump never mentioned it in his address. No talk about a Bitcoin strategic reserve – disappointing all the bros expecting it. Does Trump care about them? Not a jot. He will be listening to his advisors from real finance about the dangers to the dollar from Bitcoin. I detect the adults in the room will ensure Bitcoin is downplayed.
There is much unhappy growling noise brewing in the “serious” crypto markets over Trump’s meme-coins damaging their “credibility”. The amounts of money reaped by $TRUMP and $MELANIA from the coin-market pump and dump over the long weekend has left the whole occasion feeling more than a little tawdry. (Even the overly enthusiastic pastor from yesterday’s triumphal coronation has launched his own $LEONARDO after the ceremony yesterday!) I suspect I will be writing a lot about crypto in coming months.
Also being left behind is MAGA. The Steve Bannon wing of movement has clearly lost out to the Tech Lords. Bannon was nowhere to be seen at the inauguration. He had earlier promised to have the Billionaires excluded. Where was he? There is something almost biblically epic in the way Bannon and MAGA are being shunted aside – even as he screams into the vacuum about the fundamental chasm between MAGA and billionaires.
Pardoning 1600 Jan 6th insurrectionists looks a sop to the MAGA faithful for placing the Tech Lords directly behind the First Family, in front of Trump’s cabinet picks. That’s a signal that works two ways – look who supports me, and look who I will listen to. (Sam Altman of OpenAI was left behind in the overspill hall – that will teach him to fall out with the First Bro.) But the look in the eyes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and Sundar Pichai says it all. “It is done.. vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself.”
What happens next?
Thus far: Treasuries rallied. Stocks rose. Nothing broke.
Markets discounted all that was said yesterday, understanding it was ceremonial noise – even though Trump was saying it like he sees it. The later threats to punish Mexico and Canada with 25% tariffs by Feb 1 barely shook the dial. In coming days markets will weigh and judge. There is so much from “Drill, Baby, Drill”, TikTok, China, to withdrawing from WHO and the Paris Accords to unravel and consider.
Trump had his day in the spotlight and basked in it. Today America goes back to work. The rest of us will be watching. Move on. Let’s wait and see. The election is now behind us. The first 100 days is no longer a honeymoon. It’s a period when it can all go spectacularly wrong… or Trump’s new administration demonstrates leadership and ability.
Welcome back to the real world. Business and markets as usual.
Out of time and back to the day job…
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
2 Comments
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A useful lesson in learning to deal with reality as it is, not how we’d necessarily like it to be. Hey ho. And who knows? Maybe everything will be the bestest and biggliest and we’ll all float around on unicorn sunbeams for ever and ever?!
I suspect we shall shortly discover that no matter how high we rise, it just means further to fall…