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Is It a Trump Bump or Trump Slump?
Try this. Take your portfolio and price the holdings on election day of last year (or a few days later, after the outcome of the Congress was known). Price it again on Inauguration Day (or use the opening day of the new Congress). Price it again today. Then, you decide. Is it a pullback of…
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Shoot-Out!
Hundreds of millions of people witnessed the recent shoot-out in the Oval Office. Among them, in the room, was a reporter from Russian media. Note that Reuters and the Associated Press were not invited by the White House to join the press corps assembled there. In my opinion, the two news services not invited are among…
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Gold? Sovereign Wealth Fund
I believe a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is coming from Trump 2.0. It may have to trigger a huge change at the Fed, which might revalue the gold certificate to a $1 trillion asset on the Fed’s balance sheet. And then the liability side of the Fed’s balance sheet would be a transfer of $1 trillion…
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Tariff War Continues
The Tariff War is getting hotter. Here are some bullets and a reading list. 1. First, some history — in our new book, The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks (https://www.thefedandtheflu.com/), my co-authors and I discuss the plague in Athens and the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. See Chapter 4. Note that one of the…
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Tariffs: Oh, Canada!
“The only certainty in (fiscal, trade and monetary) policy, politics, in our capital markets, in our social lives and, even in sports, is the lack of certainty these days.” — Doug Kass We published on tariffs on Monday. See https://kotokreport.com/tariffs/. So far here’s a succinct summary of the result and an excellent explainer from PBS NewsHour: “Trump’s 2.0…
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Tariffs
Trump 2.0 tariffs and our trading partners’ retaliations are taking shape. What can we expect? Today I offer my own macro perspective and some thoughts from others. Here’s Canada’s reaction to the Trump tariffs: “Watch PM Justin Trudeau’s full announcement on Canada’s response to U.S. tariffs,”https://www.cp24.com/video/2025/02/02/full-watch-pm-justin-trudeaus-full-announcement-on-canadas-response-to-us-tariffs/ An excerpt from Trudeau’s speech: Canada has critical minerals,…
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National Defense & Transition!
I wrote about America’s national defense on the Sunday before Trump 2.0 Inauguration Day (https://kotokreport.com/national-defense/). Many thanks to readers for their varied viewpoints and responses. Here are some additional observations. First, a disclosure: I hold a defense-sector ETF exposure in my personal investment account. I’m not recommending anything, just disclosing. What you read here is…
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Trump 2.0 & Healthcare?
In the US stock market, the healthcare sector is represented by the sector spider XLV. Here’s a recent pre-inauguration picture of the sector spider’s performance. As of pre-inauguration, on January 17, 2025, the ten largest holdings in this sector spider ETF were: Eli Lilly and Co. 11.58% UnitedHealth Group Inc. 9.12% Johnson & Johnson: 6.90%…
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Guest Comments: David Blond Responds to Kotok’s “National Defense”
During the early days of the Reagan Administration, David Blond was the Senior Economist, Office of the Secretary of Defense. He sent me this note in response to the piece I wrote about national defense (which can be found at https://kotokreport.com/national-defense/). He was kind enough to give me permission to share some of his personal observations. So…
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National Defense
Readers, please note that this is my opinion alone. I’m writing this in the midst of a continuously changing environment for the defense of the United States as the Biden regime transitions to the Trump 2.0 administration. Trump’s rhetoric (I hope that’s all it is) about military action in Panama or acquiring Greenland or intensifying…