Welcome to the new week. It’s been a tough one being honest. Not many great news and plenty of bad ones. Assassinations, drones, strikes, violent protests - you name it, everything happened.
So without further ado, hit that subscribe button and see it for yourself.
Weekly Outlook
US Inc.
Charlie Kirk was shot and died during an event at university in Utah. The founder of Turning Point USA was shot in the neck and died shortly after. Several people were suspected and detained (and later released). Only after an extensive search, both online and in real life, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah accused of killing Charlie Kirk, will be formally charged on Tuesday.
The fact that Tyler had a trans partner only added fuel to the fire that erupted after his death. The social tensions in the US were already high, now it seems that something has broken. The right-wing is furious and it looks like the crackdown on woke will intensify. RIP Charlie Kirk.
Moving to international, Trump said that he will only seriously tariff / sanction Russia after EU and NATO countries stop buying Russian oil and slap 100% tariffs on China and India. It makes sense to be honest, but at the same time Europe is currently unable to fully resign from Russian energy exports. So in the end, Europe will be now pressured to buy American oil & gas, pay higher prices and put tariffs on China and India, one of the biggest trading partners. Tough life, but it will happen eventually and Europeans will pay the price.
After a surprise strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, Marco Rubio came to Israel to meet with Netanyahu. While the US was “unhappy” about the strike, it was probably approved by them in some way. Anyway, they are probably talking about next steps regarding the situation and Gaza war as the US still pledged full support to the state of Israel.
On the western hemisphere, Pete Hegseth made a visit to Puerto Rico after the Trump administration said it would deploy fighter jets to the island to crack down on drug cartels there.
Domestically, Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants continues. One undocumented migrant was killed while resisting arrest in Chicago. Additionally, Trump is looking to send the National Guard to Memphis, after deploying it in LA and Washington, DC.
Lastly Democrats released Epstein’s birthday book including a letter allegedly signed by Trump. While he denies writing the note, the whole situation represents a continued push to discredit Trump. He brought it on himself after making a fuss about Epstein files during the campaign. This one will be difficult to get through without losing support, as I already said.
The Americas
Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a coup after he lost election in 2022. While it was expected, Trump is visibly unhappy about the decision. Additionally he has it for Brazil as the country is also part of BRICS. We can expect increased pressure on Brazil in the coming months.
Asia
If all the drama around China and Thailand wasn’t enough, this week we also had major developments in Nepal. Fueled by social media ban, young Nepalis went to the streets to protest against the current government. The ban was later removed after 19 people died, however it didn’t end the protests.
People, furious about general corruption, proceeded to set fire to the parliament building. It didn’t help that the prime minister resigned - by that time at least 22 people died and Nepal’s army imposed a national curfew. The protests needed to take another 28 lives for the army to engage in talks with protesters to negotiate an interim government.
After the poll on Discord (sic!), Sushila Karki, former chief justice, was sworn in as the interim prime minister and vowed to conduct elections on March 5th next year to form a proper government. In total, 72 people died during the protest, but the situation is stable for now. I believe that Nepal narrowly avoided an intervention from either Chinese or Indian forces that easily could have entered the country if protests continued.
Middle East & Africa
Another continent, another drama. Last week Israel unexpectedly did a strike on Hamas in Qatar, trying to eliminate top political members and negotiators. 6 people from, including a Qatari officer, died, but supposedly the top brass survived the attack. Qatar is furious and vowed retaliation. US is unhappy and tried to appease Qatar by fast-tracking Defense Cooperation Agreement.
The situation now remains fairly stable, however Marco Rubio is currently visiting Israel and Arab nations are meeting in Qatar to discuss next steps. Israel was also busy in Yemen, doing strikes on Sanaa and a northern province, killing 35 people. Taking all Israeli actions into consideration, Qatar’s prime minister claimed that there is no hope now for the hostages in Gaza. Despite the whole situation, Netanyahu can feel safe for the time being per the Adjacent chart:
A bit eastward, Afghan Taliban held talks with an American delegation in Kabul about imprisoned American citizens. But we are yet to hear about a breakthrough there.
Lastly, Ethiopia inaugurated Africa’s largest hydropower source - a $5 billion dam on the Blue Nile. Turned on in 2022, only now it reached full capacity. It will generate almost 6,000 megawatts of electricity, doubling Ethiopia’s output. It has led to tensions with Egypt and Sudan over how to share the water from the river.
Europe
In Europe tensions were also running high. Russia sent at least 19 drones to Poland, resulting in NATO forces being deploy to monitor them and shoot some of them down. If you want to read more about the situation, I wrote an article detailing the whole situation:
In effect, NATO will increase the defense of its Eastern flank in an “Eastern Sentry” operation. They will deploy sensors and weapons to counter Russian incursions. Additionally NATO is ready. to defend as Zapad 2025, a joint Russia-Belarus military exercise in underway close to the Polish border. To decrease the tensions, US official paid a visit to monitor the exercise in an unprecedented move.
However Poland is not the only country that experienced Russian drones this week. Romania also scrambled its F-16 jets after Russian drone entered its airspace. No wonder ceasefire odds are trending down across the line (nice job by Adjacent to clearly see different timelines!):
Outside of war, the French government collapsed after François Bayrou lost a confidence vote. Macron needed to appoint his 5th prime minister in two years as his party is increasingly struggling to govern. Last year’s election, cunningly won, wasn’t enough to secure a long-term government and already in January I suspected this would happen. Now Sébastien Lecornu is the PM, however we might still see a new election as this is what parliament majority wants.
In Turkey, Erdogan is constantly undermining his opposition. After After CHP (opposition party) presidential candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested in March, now Hasan Mutulu, the mayor of Istanbul’s Bayrampasa district and a member of the main opposition party, as well as 47 others, were arrested under corruption allegations.
Lastly, in London there was a huge right-wing protest, gathering 150,000 people (at least, reports of many more). With increasing immigration problems and unfavorable ratings of Starmer, Britain is ripe for ReformUK to gain a significant number of seats soon.
Business, Finance & Economics
Even in business it was a busy week. First the Fed. While a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from firing Lisa Cook, the administration has already appealed, scrambling to sack Lisa Cook before the next FOMC meeting. Nevertheless, traders are now convinced that we will see a 25bps cut despite high inflation prints. We’ll see.
Despite lack of impact on unemployment percentage, the BLS revision of jobs in 12 month preceding March, totaling 911,000 less jobs than previously reported, made the traders convinced.
Moving to Europe, British economy saw zero growth in July after 0.4% growth in June. Production output declined by 1% as well. Here again, there will be increased pressure on the Bank of England that is expected to hold rates steady on the next meeting.
Across the channel, Fitch downgraded France’s debt from AA- to A+ after another government collapse.
Amid all the turmoil the price of gold rose above $3,600 an ounce, beating another ATH.
Tariffs
After a one week break we have more news on tariffs. Outside of Trump’s push for Europe to tariff China and India, Mexico put 50% tariff on Chinese cars in an effort to appease Trump. The trade war is far from over.
Wrap up
And that’s all for today. Moving on, I will try to include links with deeper insights into some of the news I present here as per one of the suggestions I got, however currently, amid all my turmoil in real life related to the move, I lack the time to vet the articles to link the truly best one.
Next on, I want to focus on Lisa Cook, however there is risk I won’t make it in time before the appeals court decision. Wish me luck! Stay strong and see you soon!
This is not official investment or life advice. Do your own research. This are only my opinions and I encourage anyone to do their own research before putting any money anywhere.