The U.S. government reopened this week although – coincidentally or not – U.S. equities swooned. The issue remains full-on valuations of U.S. stocks coupled with growing concerns with the enormous amounts of A.I. spend being put forward by many tech companies.

The melt up continued in risk markets until late Friday morning, when a post of Mr Trump's Truth Social website reported that the U.S. would impose additional 100% tariffs on Chinese imports into the U.S. starting Nov 1st because of further restrictions by China on their export of critical earth minerals. In any event, this one way trajectory up needed a pause. Monday will be interesting!

Markets largely slid sideways in the usually quiet end of the month of August. There was news though, including the last of Mag 7earnings (NVDA), political turmoil in France, PCE for July, and th usual list of Trump matters.

The bottom line is that global stocks ended at or near record highs again, with US Treasury yields slightly higher. The BoE – after a struggle – managed to lower its policy rate. Fitch published an interesting article on tariffs, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with the president, and the recent Pivot podcast interview with Anthony Scaramucci is very interesting.

NATO was front and centre last week as the annual NATO Summit was held in The Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday, making it an opportune time...

Inspired by Mr Trump's false claims that he inherited the "worst economy ever", this article looks at administrations' economic performance.

This article summarises two articles and one podcast that are topical,: US/EU automotive tariffs, social security "fraud", and steel tariffs

Here are a few last-minute thoughts on the US election which will be held on Tuesday, Nov 5. A lot is at stake, but Weds, the world goes on

There are many important issues in the US Presidential election, but none more so perhaps than immigration, inflation, and abortion.