What can wonder what happened in the US last month?
Source: NFIB
There is a reason why Americans are wealthier than others and keep getting wealthier.
What went wrong in Europe? 25 years ago Europe was more productive than the US. Source: Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet
Nvidia's $NVDA has brought in $56.5 Billion of Free Cash Flow over the last year 👀
Source: Evan on X
⁉️WILL THE SEMICONDUCTOR SECTOR PULL DOWN THE S&P 500⁉️
US Semiconductor Sector has declined by 17% over the last 5 months and by 8% over the last few weeks. NVIDIA alone is down 9% over the last month. The chipmaker stock and the sector are testing now key technical levels. Source: Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv
Elon Musk ($447B) is now worth more than Jeff Bezos ($249B) and Bill Gates ($165B) combined.
Source: Evan @StockMKTNewz
US rent prices are falling:
Median asking rent in the US declined 0.7% year-over-year in November to $1,595, the lowest since March 2022. 1-bedroom apartment rent prices fell 1.7%, to $1,450, reaching the lowest level in 3 years. 2-bedroom apartment rent prices declined 1.1%, to $1,671, to the lowest in 9 months. Furthermore, the median asking rent price per square foot dropped 2.2% to $1.79, the lowest since December 2021. This marks the 19th consecutive monthly decrease. Rent prices are cooling off. Source: The Kobeissi Letter
🔊 ZUCKERBERG DONATES $1M TO TRUMP'S INAUGURAL FUND
After a turbulent history of threats and suspensions, Meta's Zuckerberg is carefully courting Trump 2.0. Beyond the $1M inaugural donation, he's given the president-elect private demos of Meta's smart glasses and hosted strategy sessions with incoming White House officials at Mar-a-Lago. He's not alone—even longtime Trump critic Jeff Bezos has changed tune, calling Trump "calmer" and "more confident" this time around. With Republicans set to control Washington and eyeing tech regulation, Silicon Valley's power players are adjusting their stance. Source: Wall Street Journal, @MarioNawfal
Swiss National Bank (SNB) halved its interest rate with 50bps cut,
in the current context of weak inflation, upward pressures on the Swiss franc and worrying dynamics in neighboring European countries. The 50bp rate cut is half-a-surprise for financial markets, that were not fully convinced of the possibility of such large movement and were rather pricing a 25bp rate cut. swiss franc initially weakened 0.5% vs the Euro. But it is already back to 0.93. OUR TAKE (based on our Chief Economist Adrien Pichoud views) 👉 Swiss CPI inflation has slipped below 1% in the 4th quarter of 2024 (+0.7% in November) and it is expected to slow further in 2025. The SNB expects inflation to hover just above zero (+0.2%/+0.3%) for most of next year before picking up slightly as 2026 draws near. By averaging +0.3% in 2025, the inflation rate would be at the very bottom of the 0-to-2% range that the SNB targets. 👉 As the Swiss economy faces headwinds from the strength of the Swiss franc and the weakness of economic activity in Germany and most other European economies, monetary policy has no reason to be restrictive and had to be adjusted. After today’s rate cut, the monetary policy stance is about neutral (with a real short-term rate close to 0%). 👉 Looking ahead, more rate cuts are to be expected in 2025. We expect the CHF short-term rate to be lowered to 0.0% by June next year, with 25bp rate cuts at the March and June meetings. 👉 Will Switzerland move back to NEGATIVE RATES? This is not our scenario at this stage, even if it wasn’t ruled out by Mr Schlegel recently. Potential undue upward pressures on the CHF will then likely be addressed with interventions on the FX market and a possible expansion of the SNB’s balance sheet size. It would require a significant deterioration in global growth and inflation dynamics next year for the SNB to be pushed back into negative interest rate policies. Source chart: Bloomberg
