A month in French politics...
4 weeks ago, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party won EVERY single French department except for Paris in the EU Elections. Yesterday, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party came 3rd... How to explain this? - The specificities of the lower house voting system (2 rounds) - The coordinated anti-RN strategy, under which the left and centre tactically withdrew their candidates from run-off ballots - Or just an ungovernable country?
The combined annual revenue of the 5 highest earnings 🇺🇸 companies is higher than the GDP of Brazil, Italy and Canada
Top 5 US companies based on Revenue (TTM) 🥇 Walmart $WMT: $657.3B 🥈 Amazon $AMZN: $590.7B 🥉 Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B: $410.9B 4) Apple $AAPL: $381.6B 5) UnitedHealth $UNH: $379.5B Source: Evan
A remainder that US small caps have been lagging meaningfully during the current bull market
Source: MicrocapClub
France was going to choose between debt, more debt and way more debt.
Way more debt it is. Fascinating. Deficit and debt projections via Bloomberg Source: Daniel Lacalle
Almost half of the S&P500 is now essentially tech...
Source: Wisdom Tree, Mike Zaccardi
AI Evolution has tested 119+ AI tools in the last 6 months.
But most of them are useless in my daily life. Here are 8 AI tools I use almost daily: Credit: Razib ul Karim, AI evolution
The best advice... thru Seek wiser
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French politics: 📢 Absolute shock result for the legislative elections 📢
The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) is set to come in FIRST, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in THIRD in absolute shock result for the French legislative elections. Within NFP, radical left LFI leader J.L Melenchon wants the current Prime Minister to leave and rules out any coalition with the centrists (i.e he claims the Prime Minister seat for him or someone else from LFI) We note that within NFP (left-wing), the socialist party PS and the Greens have a strong score relative to radical left LFI. As such, it is unlikely that LFI will be able to claim the Prime Minister seat. Three scenarios: 1/ NFP government (with a Prime Minister coming from the less radical arm of NFP); 2/ A center-left coalition government (Macron’s Ensemble + less radical left + green).; 3/ If no political solution is found, a caretaker government could be appointed, OR instead a so-called technocratic government led by a non-political prime minister. All-in, the result is rather negative for markets (equities and bonds) as the radical left & left NFP party program is somewhat of a flash-back into the old French socialist program: - Retirement age at 60-year old - Increase of the minimum salary - Increase of taxes Such a political program would obviously be both inflationary and increase debt load and budget deficit. Still, it remains unlikely that left & radical left would be able to impose this program as their majority is a relative one. All in all, we do expect some sell-off of French equities and a rise of the OAT-Bund spread tomorrow. With regards to the new PM and the economic & social program to be applied, next few days will be critical (unless they postpone any decision after the Olympic Games...).
