Anas Abdullah

Trying to decode finance, digital assets & AI one step at a time

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

‘Words are often not adequate, silence always is.’

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

When you don’t know your options, actually you don’t have options.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

Gold has quietly overtaken US Treasuries as the world’s top reserve asset. By the end of last year, bullion made up 27% of global central bank reserves, up from 20% a year earlier. Over the same period, Treasuries fell from 25% to 22%. A major signal of shifting global trust.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

The US is still the world’s biggest economy and most potent military power. Its defence budget in 2025 was over $900bn, equivalent to 35 per cent of total global defence spending and more than three times the defence budget of China, the next most powerful military actor.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

“in economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and they happen faster than you thought they could”. Rudiger Dornbusch of MIT

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

The US is still the world’s biggest economy and most potent military power. Its defence budget in 2025 was over $900bn, equivalent to 35 per cent of total global defence spending and more than three times the defence budget of China, the next most powerful military actor.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

The conflict in Iran has been costing an estimated $2bn a day in short-term direct costs.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

The conflict in Iran has been costing an estimated $2bn a day in short-term direct costs.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

Between 1973 and 2016, more than 1,000 glaciers vanished in Switzerland. Twenty major Swiss glaciers have lost one quarter of their volume since 2015, according to a 2025 report led by Matthias Huss, a senior scientist at ETH Zürich and the head of Switzerland’s glacier monitoring network Glamos.

[Dr Gohar Ejaz @Gohar_Ejaz1]

The First Step : Simple One Page individual Tax Returns to Enhance 7 Million Filers to 100 Million Filers!

Pakistan’s 147-page FBR Tax Return Form has registered around 7 million filers with only 3 million taxpayers. Meanwhile, the USA IRS Tax Return Form 1040 is just 2 pages.

EPBDTT presents a One Page Simple Tax Return Form — designed to make filing easier, increase participation, and help Pakistan move toward 100 million filers and taxpayers.

Simple Tax. Strong Pakistan. 🇵🇰

#TaxReform #FBR #Pakistan #TaxMadeSimple #imfree

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

https://t.co/UILz6QlhlI?

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

According to @FinancialTimes: Israel has expanded military control across multiple fronts since October 7, now holding roughly 1,015 sq km of additional territory that is nearly 5% of its 1949 size.

Breakdown of areas now under Israeli control:
• Gaza buffer zone: 206 sq km
• Southern Lebanon “security zone”: 576 sq km
• Syrian territory near Golan Heights: 233 sq km

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

Americans reportedly spent nearly $45 billion extra on fuel during the Iran war period. Based on oil consumption ratios, Pakistanis may have indirectly borne an additional ~$1 billion (PKR 280–360 billion) fuel burden as well. But the real impact in Pakistan is far deeper: higher diesel prices raise food, transport & agriculture costs across the economy, while rupee depreciation amplifies every global oil shock. In developing economies, energy inflation hurts households disproportionately more than in the West.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

UK has seen 6 prime ministers in 10 years and 4 in just the last 4 years. Add to that 6 chancellors of exchequers and 6 foreign secretaries since 2020.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

The Pentagon scrapped plans to send about 4,000 troops to Poland, sources say, part of a broader review of the US military presence in Europe as Trump feuds with Germany and other members of the NATO alliance. Via @Bloomberg

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

India kept petrol & diesel prices artificially low for nearly 4 years despite a sharp rise in global crude oil prices. The hidden cost? State-run oil companies were reportedly losing around ₹1,000 crore ($120M+) every single day and absorbed losses exceeding ₹1 lakh crore to shield consumers from inflation. Now fuel prices are finally rising, meaning Indians were already paying indirectly through subsidies, government support, weaker oil company finances and inflation pressure, the real cost is simply becoming visible at the pump. https://t.co/OyzWtBuV66

[Fauzia Yazdani @yazdanifauzia]

This sepoy gets awarded tamgha Basalat before generals because as guard he saved life of charge d affair Kabul, had 3 bullets yet stood by his duty.
That’s how medals & those earning hold the honour which is linked to such medals.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

Source: https://t.co/r80ZQrq2I0

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

According to Morgan Stanley, Indian families are estimated to own about 34,600 tons of gold in the form of jewelry, bars, and savings kept in homes, bank lockers, temples, and family storage across cities from Mumbai to Kolkata. At today’s gold prices, this gold would be worth around $5.2 trillion.

[Dan Qayyum @DanQayyum]

Shehbaz Sharif has spent three decades being the brother who finished things. Where Nawaz gave the speeches, Shehbaz quietly built the projects. That style is now running Pakistan's foreign policy. And it is working.

[Anas Abdullah @_AnasAbdullah]

Donald Trump’s Iran war has cost the US $25bn, driven primarily by the military’s use of munitions, according to the Pentagon. Jay Hurst, the Pentagon’s comptroller, on Wednesday told Congress the US has spent “about $25bn on Operation Epic Fury”, in the defence department’s first public estimate of the conflict’s cost. “Most of that is ammunition,” he added.

[Qasem Al-Ali @AlaliQasem]

The oil market just passed its breaking point.
And it doesn’t matter if the Strait of Hormuz opens tomorrow.
Here’s why the damage is already done 🧵