wknd notes: Wildly Asymmetric Threats Are Emerging

I vaguely remember what happened after the stock market closed on Liberation Day. Traders sold whatever they could, S&P 500 futures, Bitcoin too, which they drilled down to around 82,300. And then when Trump bombed Iran on that random weekend not so long ago, markets were all closed except for Bitcoin, which they slammed down to 98,250. I suppose that the boys who bought back their leveraged shorts an hour later felt smart. The rest now work at McDonalds. And today, when Trump announced 30% tariffs on the EU and Mexico, with no other markets open, some new batch of clever fellas pounded Bitcoin down to 117,000.

Overall: Nvidia became the first company in human history to be worth $4trln. It means nothing of course. Or rather, $4trln means nothing in isolation. Because money is simply paper, and increasingly not even that. It’s an electronic computer entry at the Federal Reserve, and its supply can be instantly expanded with the press of a button. Presto. So, the price of an asset is meaningless. What matters are relative prices. These days, the price of many things are making new highs relative to history. The S&P 500 made a new all-time high. Nasdaq 100 too. Bitcoin. Most asset prices are soaring, except for bonds. And this all makes sense if we are approaching a monetary reset, where governments reduce the size of their suffocatingly large debts by debasing the currencies they are denominated in. Such a reset utterly savages bondholders, which is why governments will increasingly force those they control to own more of them - weak foreign governments, banks, insurance companies, probably state pensions too. The rest of us search for shelter in a market where bonds are now risk assets. Global central banks and Baby Boomers love gold. From the 2022 bear market lows, the price of gold is +108%, beating the S&P 500 which is +80% but trailing the Nasdaq 100 at +120%. The Euro Stoxx 50 index is +68% from the 2022 market lows. But indexes are stuffed with companies from the past. The entire Euro Stoxx 50 index is worth the same as Nvidia. Germany’s DAX index is worth less than Bitcoin. You see, the future belongs to the bold, the innovators, risk takers. And relative market price movements often help us see beyond the horizon. From the 2022 market lows, Nvidia stock is +1,452%. Meta is +750%, with Zuckerberg being rewarded for his breathtakingly aggressive AI bets. Coinbase is +1,100% in that time, as blockchain financial market infrastructure, crypto, and AI themes converge. And Palantir is +2,352% as investors bet on the fusion of AI, defense, and Big Brother.

Week-in-Review: Mon: Eurozone Ret sales 1.8% (1.4%e). Trump released the first in a series of tariff warning letters of new rates for Aug 1st to 14 countries, notably 25% on goods from Japan and South Korea. Search and rescue efforts continue following the tragic Texas flood. S&P -0.8%. Tue: Hungary CPI 4.6% as exp. Brazil ret sales 2.1% (2.6%). Australian key rate 3.85% (3.6%e). Copper surges as Trump plans 50% tariff as part of a set of looming sectoral tariffs on drugs, semiconductors, and metals, though he expects to offer pharmaceutical manufacturers at least a year before implementing tariffs of 200%. BOJ hints at raising inflation view. S&P -0.1%. Wed: Mexico CPI 4.32% (4.3%e), core 4.24% (4.21%e). Trump released 8 more tariff letters, notably 50% tariffs on Brazil. BTC hits record high topping $112k. NVDA hits $4T. Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X, following Grok incidents. S&P +0.6%. Thu: US jobless claims 227k (235k). Germany CPI 2.0% as exp. Fed's Daly sees two rate cuts likely this year. Trump threatens 25% tariff on Canadian goods. OPEC+ considers pause in production increases following next hike as prices sink. New Hampshire judge pauses Trump’s birthright citizenship order. S&P +0.3%. Fri: Canada unemp 6.9% (7.1%e). US and India working on interim trade deal to reduce tariffs to below 20%. Kraft Heinz prepares break up. BTC continues to surge to record 118k high. S&P -0.3%. Sat: Trump sends letters to the EU and Mexico with threat to raise tariffs to 30% on Aug 1st.

Weekly Close: S&P 500 -0.3% and VIX -1.08 at +16.40. Nikkei -0.6%, Shanghai +1.1%, Euro Stoxx +1.1%, Bovespa -3.6%, MSCI World +0.1%, MSCI Emerging -0.0%, Bitcoin +9.3%, and Ethereum +19.1%. USD rose +3.0% vs Chile, +2.6% vs Brazil, +2.1% vs South Africa, +2.0% vs Yen, +1.2% vs Sterling, +0.8% vs Euro, +0.7% vs Turkey, +0.7% vs Canada, +0.5% vs India, +0.2% vs Indonesia, +0.1% vs China, flat vs Mexico, and flat vs Sweden. USD fell -1.0% vs Russia, and -0.3% vs Australia. Gold +0.6%, Silver +5.0%, Oil +2.2%, Copper +9.0%, Iron Ore -2.6%, Corn -5.7%. 10yr Inflation Breakevens (EU +2bps at 1.75%, US +5bps at 2.39%, JP +2bps at 1.59%, and UK +2bps at 3.07%). 2yr Notes flat at 3.89% and 10yr Notes +6bps at 4.41%.

2025 Year-to-Date Equity Index Returns: Greece +50.7% priced in US dollars (+33.4% priced in euros), Poland +49% priced in US dollars (+32.1% in zloty), Hungary +45.7% in dollars (+26% in forint), Korea +41.6% (+32.4%), Israel +41.5% (+28.7%), Czech Republic +41.3% (+23.3%), Austria +37.7% (+22.4%), Portugal +37.6% (+21.8%), Germany +37% (+21.8%), Spain +36.5% (+20.8%), Colombia +34.7% (+22.4%), Italy +31.9% (+17.2%), Ireland +31.6% (+16.5%), Norway +30.2% (+15.9%), Mexico +27.9% (+14.3%), Chile +27.2% (+22.7%), Finland +27% (+12.9%), Brazil +25.7% (+13.2%), South Africa +25% (+18.6%), Euro Stoxx 50 +24.2% (+10%), France +19.8% (+6.1%), Belgium +19.7% (+6%), HK +19.1% (+20.3%), Netherlands +18.5% (+4.9%), Sweden +18.3% (+2.5%), UK +18% (+9.4%), Switzerland +17% (+2.9%), Singapore +15.2% (+7.9%), Canada +14.9% (+9.3%), Vietnam +12.3% (+15.1%), Australia +11.9% (+5.2%), Taiwan +10.9% (-1.2%), MSCI World +9.6% in US dollars, UAE +6.9% (+6.9%), China +6.6% (+4.7%), NASDAQ +6.6%, S&P 500 +6.4%, India +6.1% (+6.4%), Japan +5.8% (-0.8%), New Zealand +3.9% (-3.2%), Philippines +1.4% (-1.1%), Russell +0.2%, Indonesia -0.6% (-0.5%), Malaysia -1.6% (-6.5%), Saudi Arabia -6.1% (-6.3%), Denmark -6.4% (-16.7%), Turkey -7.2% (+5.4%), Thailand -15.4% (-19.9%), Argentina -35.2% (-20.8%).

My Scratchpad: From 2022 bear market lows, here’s how these markets have moved: S&P 500 +80%. Nasdaq 100 +120%. Russell 2000 +39%. Euro Stoxx 50 +68%. Dax +107%. FTSE  100 +34%. ASX 200 (Australia) +35%. MSCI World +75%. Nikkei 225 +65%. Shenzhen 300 (CSI 300) +16%. TSX Comp (Canada) +52%. Bovespa +48%. PLTR +2,352%. Meta +750%. AMZN +177%. AAPL +67%. MSFT +137%. NFLX +716%. GOOG +118%. TSLA +195%. NVDA +1,452%. TSM +300%. AVGO +577%. ASML +123%. INTC -2%. COIN +1,100%

My Scratchpad II: From 2022 bear market lows, here’s how markets have moved: Bitcoin +667%. Ethereum +245%. XRP +934%. Solana 1,265%. GOLD +108%. Silver +118%. Copper futures +80%. Oil futures -2%. Natural gas futures -30%. CDX IG -63bps at 50bps. CDX HY -84bps at 316bps. 10yr US Treasury yields +8bps (above 2022 highs). 30yr US Treasury yields +50bps (above 2022 highs). The dollar index (DXY) -16% from the 2022 high.

Ageing: “I am looking for thematic ideas to build into our investment forum next spring. You have any ideas that will age well?” asked the CIO. And I had a few. I’ve written so much about the AI theme, and its sister, the energy infrastructure theme. So, we skipped those, though they’ll age well. And I’ve written plenty about the 10-year transition of the global financial system to blockchain rails which is now beginning in earnest. It has finally caught the market’s attention with the passage of the GENIUS Act and the Circle IPO. We skipped that too. Here are 3 others:

Ageing II: The US has returned the world to its natural state, which is governed by the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. Every government has come to recognize that there’s no going back. The deficit spending required for nations to reengineer their national economies and military defenses is staggering. Europeans no longer believe that they can depend on the Americans to defend them. So, they’ve boosted their NATO spending commitments to 5% of GDP. It’s just the start. Draghi’s European Competitiveness Report is a roadmap they’ll follow.

Ageing III: The Chinese will also need to spend massively to adjust to this new and more hostile world. Xi Jinping needs to transition the world’s greatest manufacturing economy into something more balanced toward consumption. There are massive quantities of manufacturing capital stranded in China now. The housing bubble hangover and hyper-leveraged financial system leave Xi with limited options to respond, but you can be sure there will be more stimulus, printing, and debasement. He’ll push manufactured product on the Global South and elsewhere at any price.

Ageing IV: At the same time, China is well beyond the point where it simply steals western technology and uses it to build cheap products. My contacts who travel to China and observe its precision manufacturing capabilities tell me that it’s doubtful we can catch up. And in biotech, for example, they spent decades copying our compounds, but in the past 18mths they have started producing real innovation. It is cheaper to do human trials in China than animal trials in the US. I’m sure the same holds true for other key industries. And western investors have all left.

Ageing V: Heading into the pandemic, investors had optimized their portfolios for a world of secular stagnation. Then governments unleashed massive fiscal stimulus, debts exploded. Investors hoped the world would revert to the previous paradigm. But then the Trump kicked off a process to reshape the world. Reversing globalization or at least reshaping it. Then AI took off, which is at least as big a shock as each of the others. And when you combine all the above, the range of possible bullish and bearish outcomes is wider, flatter, and fatter than it’s ever been. In this world, you must be simultaneously long equities and protected against abrupt declines.

Anecdote: Back in the days of box cutters and cavemen, a terrorist attempted to light an explosive hidden in the sole of his shoe. His fellow passengers tackled him. And for 20yrs, Americans have removed our footwear in airport screening. The TSA just removed that requirement, our technology has caught up, finally. I was talking to the CIO about a rather dark, high-conviction investment theme. Technology is empowering small groups of determined people, individuals too, in ways that were once inconceivable. It is no longer science fiction. The distant future has finally arrived. New drone technologies are being developed in small warehouses using cheap and plentiful components, to be deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine. They are unlikely to remain there. Reports suggest that innovative offensive measures and defensive countermeasures in the new drone wars are accelerating the rate of technological advances. Long gone are the decade long development cycles for new weapons systems manufactured by the likes of Lockheed. This new world looks more like a combination of Mad Max, Terminator, and the bio-terrorism classic Twelve Monkeys. Operation Spiderweb took out a material percentage of Russia’s long-range nuclear bomber fleet. Every government on the planet realized that all but their most hardened strategic infrastructure is now vulnerable to devastating attacks. Israel used AI voice technologies to lure Iran’s senior Airforce commanders to a bunker for an emergency meeting, then destroyed them all. A single suicide drone that takes out a commercial airliner on takeoff or landing will paralyze global travel in ways infinitely harder to mitigate than a shoe bomber. And governments will conclude that to protect society against these emerging and wildly asymmetric threats, society will need to accept mass surveillance, powered by AI, at a scale that would make a Stasi blush. China is showing the way. But this theme will engulf us all in the next few years.

Good luck out there,

Eric Peters

Chief Investment Officer

One River Asset Management

Disclaimer: All characters and events contained herein are entirely fictional. Even those things that appear based on real people and actual events are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity is merely coincidental. The numbers are unreliable. The statistics too. Consequently, this message does not contain any investment recommendation, advice, or solicitation of any sort for any product, fund or service. The views expressed are strictly those of the author, even if often times they are not actually views held by the author, or directly contradict those views genuinely held by the author. And the views may certainly differ from those of any firm or person that the author may advise, converse with, or otherwise be associated with. Lastly, any inappropriate language, innuendo or dark humor contained herein is not specifically intended to offend the reader. And besides, nothing could possibly be more offensive than the real-life actions of the inept policy makers, corrupt elected leaders and short, paranoid dictators who infest our little planet. Yet we suffer their indignities every day. Oh yeah, past performance is not indicative of future returns.