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SPEAKER_00: Warfare, my weekly market review, August 30th, 2026.
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SPEAKER_00: Open economic warfare broke out between the US and its historically closest ally
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SPEAKER_00: and second largest trading partner over the weekend
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SPEAKER_00: as Canada terminated trade negotiations in response to having been attacked by
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SPEAKER_00: the US,
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SPEAKER_00: according to Prime Minister Carney,
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SPEAKER_00: who openly said that America is trying to break us so it can own us.
- 0:32
SPEAKER_00: He effectively told the Trump administration where to stick its 50% tariff policy
- 0:37
SPEAKER_00: and promised to match American levies dollar for dollar.
- 0:42
SPEAKER_00: It was a sneakily important week for financial markets.
- 0:46
SPEAKER_00: With no end in sight to the quagmire that is the Iran war,
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SPEAKER_00: oil prices generally remained elevated,
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SPEAKER_00: but all eyes were on NVIDIA's earnings scheduled for Wednesday,
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SPEAKER_00: bookended by major speeches from Treasury Secretary Besant and Fed Chairman Walsh.
- 1:02
SPEAKER_00: The recent interest rate volatility calmed on Monday,
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SPEAKER_00: with traders perhaps thrown by Trump's truly bizarre threat to use the US military
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SPEAKER_00: to control the bond market.
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SPEAKER_00: Besson announced the so-called economic D-Day,
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SPEAKER_00: which in the end was nothing more than a warning that countries
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SPEAKER_00: and companies might possibly face sanctions in the future
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SPEAKER_00: if they don't stop doing business with Iran, and was squarely aimed at China.
- 1:32
SPEAKER_00: Stock indexes fell back,
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SPEAKER_00: dragged down by another slide in big tech and AI names
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SPEAKER_00: in another typical summer low trading volume session.
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SPEAKER_00: Stocks and bonds bounced back on Tuesday,
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SPEAKER_00: led by some big tech AI dip buying and reports of a plan to restaff US embassies in
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SPEAKER_00: the Middle East,
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SPEAKER_00: which signaled an anticipation of no further military escalation,
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SPEAKER_00: sending oil prices tumbling.
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SPEAKER_00: Consumer confidence and optimism remains in the toilet,
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SPEAKER_00: according to the latest data,
- 2:06
SPEAKER_00: but frankly, that is not even news anymore and it had little impact on anything.
- 2:13
SPEAKER_00: Stocks and bonds barely reacted on Wednesday to the announcement of
- 2:17
SPEAKER_00: a still sticky 3.7% annualized PCE inflation rate and the latest Q2 GDP estimate
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SPEAKER_00: of 1.5% economic growth.
- 2:28
SPEAKER_00: Meta settled its social media addiction trial,
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SPEAKER_00: accepting over $16 billion in penalties,
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SPEAKER_00: but the stock initially rebounded on a sense that the company had dodged
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SPEAKER_00: a potentially much larger bullet.
- 2:42
SPEAKER_00: Nvidia's earnings are considered to be a barometer for the whole AI trade,
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SPEAKER_00: and we got to see them after the close,
- 2:50
SPEAKER_00: with the stock price coming off a recent run of seven straight days of losses,
- 2:54
SPEAKER_00: its worst streak since 2022.
- 2:57
SPEAKER_00: Shares had fallen in response to six of its eight previous reports, including the last four.
- 3:03
SPEAKER_00: But the trend was bucked this time around as revenue,
- 3:07
SPEAKER_00: earnings and especially forward guidance all blew through estimates.
- 3:12
SPEAKER_00: And when the market opened on Thursday,
- 3:14
SPEAKER_00: the stock price of the largest component of the S&P 500 at over 7% of the index and
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SPEAKER_00: the NASDAQ 100 at over 8% soared.
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SPEAKER_00: Swiftly adding almost half a trillion dollars in value
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SPEAKER_00: and pulling stock markets nicely into the green for the session.
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SPEAKER_00: It was ably assisted by Salesforce and CrowdStrike,
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SPEAKER_00: who also announced solid earnings and roared higher.
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SPEAKER_00: Fed Chairman Walsh got a shot at redemption and a possible restoration of
- 3:46
SPEAKER_00: at least some
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SPEAKER_00: of his tattered credibility following his ghastly press conference earlier this
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SPEAKER_00: month with a speech at the central bank's annual Jackson Hole retreat on Friday.
- 3:57
SPEAKER_00: Although he failed to even once reference the colossal national debt
- 4:02
SPEAKER_00: and stopped short of saying whether he would support raising the Fed funds rate
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SPEAKER_00: at September's meeting,
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SPEAKER_00: markets were somewhat satisfied after his speech that he had finally got the memo
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SPEAKER_00: about expressing inflation and interest rate concerns.
- 4:17
SPEAKER_00: But stocks,
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SPEAKER_00: especially interest rate sensitive small caps and bonds,
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SPEAKER_00: drifted lower as the odds on an imminent Fed rate hike solidified.
- 4:29
SPEAKER_00: The S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 large cap indexes,
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SPEAKER_00: as well as the international stocks,
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SPEAKER_00: ended the week with gains, but US small caps finished lower.
- 4:41
SPEAKER_00: Some other things I'm thinking about.
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SPEAKER_00: The Treasury's daily statement showed current outstanding U.S.
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SPEAKER_00: national debt now at $40.05 trillion,
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SPEAKER_00: a level, one,
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SPEAKER_00: that has doubled in less than a decade, two,
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SPEAKER_00: works out to be roughly $117,000 per American, three,
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SPEAKER_00: is growing by $6 to $7 billion a day,
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SPEAKER_00: more than half of which is interest payments on debt already issued,
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SPEAKER_00: Four is worth more than the value of all the gold ever mined in history.
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SPEAKER_00: And five would take 110 years to pay off even if a billion dollars was repaid every day.
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SPEAKER_00: The interest expense alone is running at over a trillion dollars a year,
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SPEAKER_00: which consumes about 19% of the entire annual revenue generated by federal taxes
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SPEAKER_00: and exceeds the total US defense budget.