The Interest Expense on US National Debt rose to a record $1.178 trillion in the last 12 months, an increase of 142% over the past 4 years.
The US Government now spends more money on interest than it does on National Defense. Source: Charlie Bilello
DOGE has had no impact
Deficit in 2025 is bigger than 2024, 2023… Source: The Long View @HayekAndKeynes
February inflation data is out…
• PPI 3.2% YoY, (Est. 3.3%) • PPI 0% MoM, (Est. 0.3%) • PPI Core 3.4% YoY, (Est. 3.5%) • PPI Core -0.1% MoM, (Est. 0.3%)
US inflation comes in lower than forecast:
Headline CPI slows to 2.8% in Feb from 3% in Jan, smallest since Nov2024, Core CPI cools to 3.1%, lowest since Apr2021. Housing inflation cools; airfares and pump prices drop. BUT: Inflation data doesn’t yet reflect tariff impact. Source: HolgerZ, Bloomberg
Here are the countries that own the most US debt
Source: Visual Capitalist
Tariffs "cheat sheet" updated
Source: Bloomberg
Trump 2.0 vs. Trump 1.0
The full market picture by Fund Strat Interesting to link this to Trump's comments yesterday on FoxNews: "There could be a little disruption (…) Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can't really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100 year perspective. We go by quarters. And you can't go by that”. Not the same kind of Trump's put than in 2017...
The US labour market is on recession alert as job market cools with large discrepancies between establishment survey and household survey.
👉 The establishment survey showed 151,000 new jobs in Feb, LESS than expected. 👉 According to the household survey, 588,000 jobs were cut in Feb, which is why the unemployment rate has risen to 4.1%, although the participation rate has also fallen from 62.6% to 62.4%. Source: HolgerZ, Bloomberg
