The power of the AI trade...
While Taiwan’s $977 billion economy is less than a quarter of the UK’s $4.3 trillion, last week Taiwan overtook the UK in stock market capitalization at $4.14 trillion, making it the world’s seventh largest, according to data compiled by Bloomberg showing the combined value of companies with a primary listing on the island. The UK’s market was valued at around $4.09 trillion. Source: Bloomberg, Neil Sethi
Looking for a "Anthropic proxy"?
It seems that SK Telecom ($SKM) offers stronger exposure to Anthropic than Zoom ($ZM) due to a larger and more valuable stake. SKM owns ~1.07% versus ZM’s ~0.6%, making its holding worth about $8.6B vs. $4.8B at an $800B valuation. As a result, Anthropic represents a much bigger portion of SKM’s valuation. Investors effectively get more Anthropic exposure per share with SKM, while its core business appears undervalued. Despite recent gains, SKM is still seen as a better proxy for Anthropic ahead of a potential IPO. Source: Negligible Capital
The US blockade of the blockade seems to work rather well for the US.
It's substantially reduced Iran's oil exports (and inflow of hard currency), seized an Iranian ship and threatened secondary sanctions on Chinese banks that deal in Iranian oil. Meanwhile, oil prices are down from their highs. And the US is exporting record volume of il & gas. Kudos! Source: Robin Brooks
ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude vs Grok vs DeepSeek.
Everyone’s asking, “Which one’s the best?” Truth is: there’s no single winner. Each AI has its own lane. Source: AI Evolution
The Federal Reserve reported an annual operating loss of $18.5 billion for 2025, marking its third straight yearly loss.
The Fed's total operating loss now stands at $210B over the past three years. Time to turn on the money printer Source: Jesse Cohen
The dream of China surpassing the U.S. as the world’s largest economy is fading.
In 2021, China’s GDP was about 78% of the U.S.; by 2024, that share had fallen to roughly 64%, back to around 2017 levels, with the gap between the two economies doubling in just a few years. Note that we are talking about NOMINAL GDP. Over the last few years, the US has been generating inflation while China has been facing deflation or low inflation. This matters when you consider nominal GDP growth. Source: Terence Shen
An interesting Wall Street Journal story highlights the UAE’s request for a dollar swap line.
While the UAE has yet to report its end-March reserves, it entered the current situation with substantial reserves and significant holdings of liquid U.S. assets. Given the central bank’s apparent liquidity, the vast resources of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds, and the country’s clear ability to borrow in dollars, it seems unlikely that the UAE would face a genuine dollar shortage. Source: Brad Setser
The World soared to its highest level of uncertainty in history last year, surpassing Covid, the Global Financial Crisis, and the Dot Com Bubble 👻🤯👀
Source: Barchart
