Tom

CFA | Investment Manager Research

[Ramon van Meer @ramonvanmeer]

Everyone says they’d pay more for “Made in the USA.”

I tested it.

We make a $129 filtered showerhead manufactured in China. With tariffs surging to 170%, we explored reshoring. We found a U.S. supplier. Our costs nearly tripled.

I ran a clean A/B test:
👇

[Jim Bianco @biancoresearch]

1/2

The breaking of this relationship is a measure of stress in markets ... it continues to widen.(Higher rates are not supporting the dollar right now. This means they might have to go a lot higher to stop the dollar from falling.)

[PDS @TopadoDuran]

Trump maximalist approach with China is more likely than not short lived.

There are 2 catalysts that are crystalizing this self defeating move:

1- Parts of the US economy are in a sudden stop. There is a wide range of anecdotal evidence and port data indicating imports orders from China are halted/ being canceled

2-Trump has proudly broadcasted the low February and March inflation prints. Today he complained Powell was not cutting rates arguing oil and grocery pricers were down. @realDonaldTrump is aware he came to power with a mandate to lower prices and solve the cost of living crisis

Underneath all this there is a message that Trump popularity depends on the trajectory of inflation (even above the economy for now).

If we look at the CPI fixing market, the impact from tariffs will lift April and May inflation to a 4.2% annualized rate while the print in June is expected to print at 6% annualized rate. No amount of gaslighting will hide these inflation rates

I argue Trump knows the above and is eager to find an off ramp with China as the current level of tariffs is self defeating

[Bob Elliott @BobEUnlimited]

The US Wrecking Ball policy stance still has a long ways to go to before its reflected in asset markets.

Moves so far mostly have mostly just reversed the euphoria around the election of the new admin. It'll take much larger moves to reflect today's policy reality.

Thread.

[Michael R. Strain @MichaelRStrain]

This trade war is predicated on a mountain of bullshit.

1. Wages and incomes for typical workers haven’t been stagnant for decades.

2. The game isn’t rigged—economic gains flow to everything.

3. The middle hasn’t been permanently hollowed out.

👇
https://t.co/C5wdZIDRbk

[Jim Bianco @biancoresearch]

Regarding today's market action ...

"I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as POTUS or the Pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
- James Carville, 1994

[Ernie Tedeschi @ernietedeschi]

Folks, a 10% broad tariff on everything plus 125% on China, is a **25pp increase in the effective tariff rate**, even accounting for USMCA exemptions.
That's almost exactly where 2025 tariff policy was this morning. It was just less concentrated on China & more weighted overseas

[Ray Dalio @RayDalio]

https://t.co/Xpdl8fYoBg

[JV @AyyouEm]

Lol. Lmao even.

We haven't distributed any capital ("but look at your IRR!") and you can't sell your stake unless you write a commit for the next fund.

Deeply unserious industry, even more unserious LPs still playing along with this.

[Ben Hunt @EpsilonTheory]

I promised a long-form note on why the tariffs are madness, yes, but even more so why replacing the Pax Americana regime with an America First regime is such a terrible deal for ALL Americans.

So here you go! No paywall on this one.

"Crashing the Car of Pax Americana" 🧵

[James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ @JimPethokoukis]

This from JPMorgan is bad, bad, bad:

[Morning Brew ☕️ @MorningBrew]

Quote of the day—

David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist, JPMorgan AM:

[the ghost of groditi’s future 👹 @GRoditiD]

Here's an estimate of what the trend growth of EPS needs to for index levels to have 10% compound returns over 10y if you assume an exit at mean multiple of 2007-23
large growth: 12.35%
large value: 12.71%
mid growth: 8.15%
mid value: 7.75%
small growth: 6.42%
small value: 7.95%

[Corey Hoffstein 🏴‍☠️ @choffstein]

1/ A "quick" summary of my Democratize Quant discussant role for @RA_Insights's paper "Reimagining Index Funds"

(The paper actually seems to have been taken down from Research Affiliates's website... but here's the tweet, I guess https://t.co/N0cWKOW4yu)

[𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐇𝐲𝐩𝐞 @EffMktHype]

If ES/SPX closes relatively unchanged on 5/18 you can expect realized 10d vol to drop to ~8% annualized. What's that mean?
Fuck all. As in literally fuck all is going on.
Here let me show you how little fuckery is going on.

F/1

[boaz weinstein @boazweinstein]

Having a blast watching our daughters sing every lyric tonight in Philly. Did you know that @taylorswift13 invests in discounted closed end funds? You think I’m kidding, but her father Scott told me so! For many reasons, it’s hard not to be a Swifty.

[Mike Simonsen 🐉 @mikesimonsen]

Bottom line: The housing market rebound this spring is stronger than you think.

1. Supply is severely restricted - only 66k new single family listings
2. Demanded exceeds supply
3. Home prices have stopped the declines of 2H 2022

That's in this week's @AltosResearch video

1/6

[Kevin C. Smith, CFA @crescatkevin]

Not so fast. Relative to open interest, it is actually the largest hedge fund short position since right before the top of the market in 2007 which shows that this is not a reliable contrarian indicator at all.

[The Red Deer @the_red_deer]

LP portfolio pricing in secondaries by asset class

[Markets & Mayhem @Mayhem4Markets]

There's far too much talk around these parts about how the dollar will be vanishing from global trade imminently, but the reality is this is a process that takes decades.

First, the greenback makes up nearly 60% of global foreign exchange reserves. That's pretty massive!

1/