Stocks liked the economic data that was released this week, even though it was still light on official data as the US government recovers from its recent closure. Bond investors less happy, as yields gapped higher across the curve. All eyes are now on next week's FOMC meeting, where a 25bps reduction in the Fed Funds rate looks fully priced in.

The weekly update covers NVDA's excellent earnings; the A.I. shine which is wearing off; the minutes from the last FOMC meeting (Oct); and the fall of Bitcoin.

A.I. featured large again last week, mainly because it was the key talking point as five of the Mag 7 companies released earnings with mixed results. The FOMC decision also went as expected, although Mr Powell threw some caution into the wind. Global stock markets took it in stride, but the US Treasury market was less happy as yields rose across the curve. Gold was weaker again, and the US Dollar strengthened.

This article is an update of my personal portfolio at the end of 1H2025 (June 30, 2025). To say it was a volatile quarter is the mother of all understatements. Fortunately, I came out OK thanks to the fact that investors – especially in the bond market – provided guardrails for the nutty economic policies of Mr Trump. I saw the train wreck coming, but I failed to anticipate the shockingly fast recovery. You can read the gory details in this article.

This article contains a summary of full-year 2024 performance of the indices and assets tracked by EMC, plus historical data, too.

This is a guest post about gold, penned by online investment firm BullionVault. Gold has just pierced $2,100/oz, reaching a record high.

Since I write a lot about markets and macroeconomic topics, it is only fair that I talk about my own investment portfolio.

The Street pros provide year-end 2023 projections for stocks and bonds, so why not EMC? Here are my guesstimates and rationales.

2022 has been an abysmal year for most indices and asset classes globally, with the exceptions being oil, gold and the FTSE 100. Now what?