Worldwide Financial Planning

This week the Donald Trump effect was evident in markets again. Trump kicked off with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports and ended the week with a promise of reciprocal trade tariffs on all US trading partners.

Four years ago, Trump’s biggest funder contacted me regarding this column. Last week, I said I might be waiting a long time for Trump to come good on his deal to end the war in the Ukraine. Amazingly two days later, he announced he would be scooting into Saudi Arabia to meet Mr Putin to do just that. Great to feel wrong for a good reason.

The BoE expects price rises in areas like domestic energy and water bills to lift inflation up towards 4% this year. But its view that any acceleration will be temporary opens to door to more aggressive rate cuts this year. If the bank’s forecast is correct this should be supportive of government bond prices and could see further weakness in the pound.

Trump’s economic logic is a mix of old-school protectionism and miscalculated bravado. Tariffs are a tax on consumers, plain and simple. They don’t bring wealth; they just shuffle the costs around and leave people paying more for the same goods.

Despite the sharp dip in AI and microchip stocks, like most recent sell-offs, the recovery has been almost as swift as the decline. As Softbank’s $25bn investment pledge shows, investors fear missing out. It serves as a warning that the eventual leaders in this industry may not be the current favourites.

Being self-congratulatory over a stock which you bought, without understanding it, and seeing its value soar, is the exhilaration of skydiving without having checked your parachute. You can’t blame anyone.