My two new Substack posts: “In the Eye of the Storm” (Parts I and II US markets somewhat stabilised, due to the administration's spin and wishful thinking. Nobody knows how strong the storm will be here: vtor.substack.com/p/still-in-the… and here: vtor.substack.com/p/still-in-the���

Link to report: dezernatzukunft.org/overcoming-m... A big thank you to @jvtk.bsky.social! Possibly of interest to @olafstorbeck.ft.com @eurobriefing.bsky.social @chrisgiles.ft.com @joelsuss.ft.com @klaus-adam.bsky.social @isabelschnabel.bsky.social @vmrconstancio.bsky.social

Check my new Substack post : THE ECB CUTS RATES. UNFOUNDED TRUMP ENVY vtor.substack.com?utm_source=n...

CPJ has issued a safety advisory for journalists traveling to or entering the US: cpj.org/2025/04/cpj-...

See my Substack post about the new dangerous phase of the crisis: The Apprentice deepens the crisis. open.substack.com/pub/vtor/p/the…

So, Trump just blinked (a little) on tariffs. He delayed for 90 days the high misnamed “reciprocal tariffs” and kept all countries at 10% meanwhile, except China because it already retaliate. So, he tariffs on China to 125%. Now, he will negotiate with dozens of countries 1/

The Trump crisis just entered a new dangerous phase with the sell-off of Treasury bonds. Yields increased and the dollar continued to depreciate. It seems a market rotation out of US assets. The slide shows the German bunds did not increase as much. US Treasuries losing their save-haven status? 1/

Tesla’s share price has halved over the past three months, ..hedge fund short sellers have made $16.2bn betting against it. JP Morgan note: “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”

Trump dangerous attempt to control the FED : “Donald Trump makes push for control of independent US regulators: Executive order will force watchdogs including the Federal Reserve and SEC to submit draft regulations to the White House.”https://www.ft.com/content/9d097840-cad0-49d2-8d27-5f59b4628f10

The Trump’s pro-Russia policy described by the FT: “Donald Trump appeared to blame Ukraine for the war with Russia and signalled Kyiv should hold elections... you should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” www.ft.com/content/2506...

Alas, this will have to change. FT: “Russian defence spending exceeds all of Europe combined, study finds” www.ft.com/content/93d4...

According to the ignoramus-in-chief a bilateral trade deficit with one country means “subsidizing” that country.

Euro Area growth in Q4 disappointed showing stagnation. The ECB concluded that “The disinflation process is well on track” and, so, cut policy rates by 25 bps with the relevant DFR at 2.75%. The sentence “monetary policy remains restrictive” points to further cuts. 1/

The European Council of Foreign Relations survey shows that the majority of the world population welcomed the Trump election, but in Europe only 22% did it. Likewise, only 22% of the Europeans consider the US as an ally! ecfr.eu/publication/al…

Reflections on 2024/24. WORDS OF 2024: in politics, Nationalism; in the economy, Plutonomy. Nationalism became the world´s dominant political ideology, consolidated with Trump´s re-election. It´s preferable to FT´s Rachman exaggerated and weird use of the word fascism. 1/

I did a keynote address at a Banco de Portugal meeting of Portuguese economists about the future challenges to Monetary policy. See the slides I used at www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mea8d...

My interview with Maria Tadeo at the occasion of Le grand Continent Summit legrandcontinent.eu/fr/videos/en...

And here I thought that the revised trade agreement Trump signed with Canada and Mexico was the best deal ever.

Ah the unavoidable schadenfreude in seeing Germans, from Merkel to my former ECB colleague Jürgen Stark!, proposing the elimination of the “debt brake”, after the folly of introducing it in 2009 at the crisis´ peak to substitute the golden rule, successfully in place since 1969!

The tech crypto bubble goes bananas. A crypto tycoon bought the Comedian’s banana in a Sotherby auction for $6.2 million after a competitive biding among many participants that started at 800 thousand dollars. The 1% is indeed in a bublle

The Trump stock rally is plateauing and the Conference Board leading indicators continue to point down for future economic activity deceleration. Tax cuts and tariffs increase may have an initial net positive effect on stock prices, but not on activity going forward. 1/

The sugar-high jump of US stock indices after the Election have now been reversed, from the S&P 500 to the Russul index for small firms. That is not the end of all Trump trades but reflects the huge uncertainty that Trump Administration policies create.

It looks as if this place is becoming what Twitter used to be; for now, at least, we can post stuff to a sigificant audience without being overrun by trolls and bots. For starters, here's my complete theory of the election, and probably my last word on the subject