Democratic landslides in US state and city elections this week raised the possibility that Republicans could lose control of Congress entirely in the 2026 midterms. At the same time, the Supreme Court began public deliberations on legal challenges to the use of IEEPA emergency powers to impose tariffs without Congressional authority. Now on the backfoot after successful Democratic campaigns against high prices, will President Donald Trump be forced to leave the Federal Reserve alone to...

With an imminent election in Argentina and a string of them looming in Chile, Colombia and Brazil, Medley Advisors’ Latin America analysts decided the time was ripe for a client roadshow in New York last week. Their arrival also coincided with an escalation of the US’s military build-up in the Caribbean—culminating in deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft-carrier group—as part of a campaign to change the regime in Venezuela. “This is like Anton Chekhov said: when you han...

As budgetary standoffs bring down a fifth French cabinet before it even takes office and shut down the US federal government, Medley Advisors analysts met to ask why markets seem so sanguine. "Markets say they care about fiscal sustainability, but I'm not sure they do," says markets specialist Dan Schwartz. "Alternatively, they're saying that, despite the slippage, it's not a problem ... If that were to change, it would probably change all at once and then you'll start to see a risk premium p...

As they near the end of their easing cycles, the Antipodean central banks are being tested by contrasting data signals - a hot August inflation print in Australia and contracting second-quarter activity in New Zealand. Will these price signals end the Reserve Bank of Australia's rate cuts? By contrast, will economic weakness prompt the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to go for a 50-basis-point cut at its next meeting? "There’s scope for the RBA to ease in November but easing next year has start...

In recent weeks, financial markets have been sending conflicting signals about the risk of inflation, recession, and the sustainability of debt. Japanese and British yields, especially, spiked but then abated in line with falling US rates. To pick through this head-scratcher, Dan Schwartz, head of macro at Energy Aspects, talked to Medley Advisors’ Andrew Besuyen and Pepijn Bergsen. "What I think is happening is: the market thinks the [Federal Reserve] is going to be appropriate...

US President Donald Trump hogs the daily headlines but financial markets had a rare week off as attention turned to the latest episode in France's long fiscal crisis. As François Bayrou prepares to become the fourth prime minister to fall in 20 months, investors are asking whether anyone can pass a budget with such a split national assembly, whether a new legislative election will follow and lead to a victory for Marine Le Pen's right-wing RN, and even whether President Emmanuel Macron may r...

By now, it was meant to be clear that tariffs were pushing up US inflation and depressing employment but, until the producer prices index for July was released this week, evidence had been mixed. There has been little sign of passthrough to consumer prices although payrolls growth in July and big downward revisions to the May and June estimates were bad enough to provoke President Donald Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and replace her with a yes-man. To discuss ...

News that the US and Japan had agreed a trade deal a week ahead of deadline added 5% to Japanese equity prices while lifting 10-year rates to 17-year highs, and this was followed by reports of an impending US-EU settlement, which pushed up European stocks by 2% and German 10-year rates by close to 10 basis points. As the 1 August deals deadline approached, analysts at Medley Advisors (a division of Energy Aspects) held their weekly internal meeting to add market context to policy analysis.&nb...

After "Liberation Day" in April, 7-11 July has been the biggest week so far in US President Donald Trump's disruptive second-term trade policy. So far this week, 22 countries have received letters warning them that their stay of tariff execution is approaching its end in August. Or September. "This is a TV season and we're nearing the end and it's got to get more and more exciting week by week before Trump announces all of his big deals," says Brian Jackson, Medley Advisors' trade polic...

As the market impact of the Israel-Iran conflict fades, pre-war market themes - dollar weakness, euro strength, and trade uncertainty - have snapped back, fed by reports that the new Federal Reserve's chair will be unveiled well ahead of his or her appointment. At their weekly meeting before news of minor Chinese and EU trade concessions to the US, Medley Advisors analysts discussed these themes. In this edited version of the meeting, the speakers, in order, are: Dan Schwartz, Michael Redmon...

US Congressional Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” has provoked a rift between President Donald Trump and his former ally Elon Musk but it has also created a policy dilemma for the Federal Reserve. In this podcast, Medley Advisors’ US analyst and Fed-watcher Michael Redmond talks to Tim Jones. Longer-term fears of fiscal slippage are keeping long-term US rates high but the bill’s tax cuts may encourage households and businesses to buy tariff-inflated goods in the short term. In...

Global bond yields may have come off their peaks going into the weekend but this was after a May surge that lifted US 10-year rates by 30 basis points back over 4.5% and pushed Japanese 30- and 40-year rates to all-time highs. At their weekly analysts' meeting, Medley Advisors discussed these market moves and how the authorities could respond, and debated sovereign defaults, inflated-away debt, and memories of the early days of the eurozone's solvency crisis. "I'm thinking about this more a...

In a week that saw US equities return to their pre-“Liberation Day” levels, Medley Advisors’ analysts consider the next steps for the US, European and Brazilian central banks. “The Federal Reserve doesn’t think that it has a particular edge in guessing where this economy is going from here,” says US analyst and Fed-watcher Michael Redmond. “There could be some inflationary concerns that keep the Fed on pause for a while … but ultimately, I view tariffs as just another form of taxation a...

The combination of US President Donald Trump's war of words with the Federal Reserve and apparent de-escalation of his trade war with China lifted US stocks 6% from early-week lows and lopped 10 basis points off 10-year rates. But, as became clear during Medley Advisors' weekly analysts' meeting, these reassurances from Trump and his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provided less than met the eye. Even if the US halved its tariffs on imports from China, "you still would be at tariff rates, ...

The morning after the Trump administration published its “Liberation Day” tariff list, Medley Advisors analysts met to consider the next steps. They discussed how much of the package was accident or design, US negotiating tactics and capacity, retaliation and conciliation. “The one thing that's really notable,” said Brian Jackson, Medley’s China and trade specialist, “is that Mexico and Canada are at a huge advantage now compared to the rest of the world because they have...

Over the past three weeks, the US withdrawal from European security and a consequent arms-and-infrastructure fiscal boost for Germany have driven up the euro, along with European equities and interest rates. Medley Advisors' European analysts, Tim Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, got together to discuss whether this political upheaval justifies the scale of repricing. "At the end of the day," says Bergsen, "there's a very easy rule of thumb here, which is that those countries closest to Moscow are i...

Eighteen months after Australia’s central bank chief was removed, New Zealand’s governor Adrian Orr quit with three years left of his term. Both had faced withering political criticism, but Orr’s departure was so abrupt and inexplicable that it shook the market just as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was carefully reversing its pandemic-era tightening cycle. To explain what Orr’s departure may mean for policy and to contrast the easing cycles in Australia and New Zealand, Pepijn...

The impact of the US government's about-turn on Ukraine and the North Atlantic alliance will be felt most keenly in Europe. In this podcast, Pepijn Bergsen, Medley Advisors' macro policy analyst, and James Waddell, the Head of European Gas and Global LNG at Energy Aspects, discuss what this strategic upheaval will mean for natural gas prices and fiscal spending. "Europe remains pretty burned from what happened with the Russian weaponisation in the first place," says James Waddell. "Most mem...

Radical US Republicans are looking 5,000 miles south for inspiration as they take their own "chainsaw" to government. Sixteen months since taking office as Argentina's president, Javier Milei has met his promises to drive down inflation and generate a primary surplus while sustaining public approval. For an assessment of the exportability and sustainability of the Milei model, Pepijn Bergsen talked to Medley Advisors' Argentina specialist, Ignacio Labaqui. "I don't think the public fin...

Markets have been pricing in a second Donald Trump presidency since October but are still unsure over how literally to take his trade and fiscal promises and their spillover into Federal Reserve policymaking. His first days in office have been even noisier than they were in 2017 as he signed more than 100 executive orders and pardoned 1,500 people convicted for crimes related to the occupation of the Capitol Building in January 2021. On top of this, joining Trump in his practice of gov...