Friday Briefing: Liberation Day is the moment 'Nero picked up the fiddle'

Friday Briefing

In one fell swoop, US President Donald Trump has cemented the moment the US finally peaked and, from here on out, there will be a movement against what has been the lead market in allocations and returns.

On his self-determined ‘Liberation Day', Trump held up a poster board of ‘reciprocal' tariffs, which unveiled a global 10% levy, with rates up to 60% for those countries he has deemed the ‘worst offenders'. I put ‘reciprocal' in quotes because these are categorically not that. The logic of a reciprocated tariff would mean that the levies are based on what countries are already charging the US in the form of existing tariffs, plus non-tariff barriers (such as regulation). However, the White House's formula was calculated with the intention to eliminate the US' goods trade deficit...