1. The U.S. trade deficit got BIGGER instead of smaller, after a year of Trump tariffs!

At $901 billion, it marked the third-largest gap between imports and exports in the country's history.
On top of that a bombshell report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found this week that American businesses and consumers paid nearly 90% of the costs from the 2025 tariff wave. Despite administration claims that foreign exporters would "eat" the costs, researchers found that international suppliers barely lowered their prices. U.S. footed the $264 billion bill in total tariff revenue.

2. The implosion in the crypto space.

Following the recent sell-off, anyone who bought at the 2021 highs is now essentially flat for the past 5 years.
Perhaps more worryingly, the broader crypto space has now wiped out $2 trillion of market cap in just 6 months.

3. R.I.P. Passive Management.

The S&P index isn’t going anywhere but sector rotation and stock picking is yielding big returns.

4. And the Nasdaq is underperforming the S&P equal weight index.

If knowledge, thanks to AI, is suddenly ubiquitous and “free”, investors may well retreat to assets they can touch, such as turbine manufacturers, copper mines etcetera.

In other words, rather than solidify US dominance over global financial markets, the spread of AI increasingly appears to be destroying US outperformance.

As is often the case, revolutions end up eating their own children.
It is a serious challenge to what most investors expected only a few months ago.

5. Institutional clients are checking out.

Bank of America’s institutional clients dumped US equities last week, with single-stock outflows reaching near-historic levels.
Single-stock outflows reached $8.3 billion — the third highest since records began in 2008.

We will be back on the 3rd of March!

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