Ukraine. Rubio and Witkoff will not attend talks in London after Ukraine rejects parts of the Ceasefire Proposal (giving Crimea to Russia). Ex General Kellog will go instead. Putin will be delighted. Zelensky can now be framed as the reason why the Cease Fire P... Read More

The Truce Proposal Update. British newspaper (FT) article claims Putin ready to agree a ceasefire based on actual front lines and abandon precondition that the unoccupied remainder of the so-called (Witkoff) five Ukrainian provinces be handed over to Russia in advance o... Read More

Re-Assessment of Tariff Damage and the Spillovers to Expect. Yesterday i wrote to you after the initial Trump volte face on the imposition of reciprocal tariffs (postponed for 90 days) and the imposition of 125% tariffs on China. I calculated that the average US tariff w... Read More

Re-Assessment of Tariff Damage and the Spillovers to Expect. Yesterday i wrote to you after the initial Trump volte face on the imposition of reciprocal tariffs postponed for 90 days and the imposition of 125% tariffs on China. I calculated that the average US tariff was... Read More

Germany Coalition (CDU/CSU + SPD) Agreed & Spending Plans. Positive for German equities. Bearish for long term Bunds (but not short term bunds). Marginally positive for the Euro. The German coalition agreement and the published spending plans are positive fo... Read More

Update - the week ahead. I don't expect any surrender by President Trump on April 9th. Barring that the full 25% rate of Tariffs announced on April 2 will be implemented. In comments made yesterday the President emphasised that his priority is to "address" the US current ... Read More

Some clients are having trouble accessing the RUSI piece on US Policy. This is because they have not signed up for their own Quantum Strategy (QS) account and set a password. A reminder on how to do this will be sent shortly. In the meantime, here is direct link to the RU... Read More

There is a high probability that President Trump will exempt the UK from any US reciprocal/remedial tariffs to be imposed on April 2. EU will have no such luck. Of course this will create tension in the Alliance of the WIlling to defend Ukraine. That is seen as a win by the T... Read More

Taiwan- Canary in the Coal Mine The disruption of the North Atlantic Alliance and the Liberal World Order are being acted upon by Beijing. Beijing beleives that these events reinforce its conviction that democracy is too decadent to defend itself and that the US will not... Read More

ECB Policy Meeting. Conclusion: ECB will continue to cut rates by 25bp in each of the next two meetings. The ECB did as expected: 25bp off all three policy rates and changed to language on monetary stance from being restrictive to a more neutral stance. The... Read More