The US federal government ran a deficit of $1.8 trillion (6.4% of GDP) in 2024. This is expected to increase to 6.7% of GDP in 2025. Some notable developments in the federal government's expenditure: Interest payments have grown to a hefty $890b per year, more than three times what they were a decade ago Tariff revenue more than doubled to $16b in April 2025, but this barely makes a dent in the overall deficit…

The Taiwanese dollar (TWD) soared as much as 8% this month. This would be a colossal move for any currency, but especially for TWD, which usually moves less than 0.5% daily. Folks have been scrambling to figure out who was responsible for this spectacular rally, from exporters to life insurance companies to the central bank. It's the balance of payments, stupid.

My world, anyway. Bonds issued by the US government, known as US Treasuries, sit at the center of the world's financial constellation. What happens to Treasuries ripples through to every other market: bonds of other countries, stocks, FX, and crypto. Sure the FX market is larger, but the dollar takes its cues from US Treasury yields. My raison debt. Given the importance of the key 10-year yield, I have modeled it as a function of macroeconomic and financial data (i.e.

Trump's tariffs have captivated the current news cycle and bear major ramifications for the cost of goods, global supply chains, and America's influence in the world. The goal of his policy is to narrow America's trade deficit, which he calls a "national emergency". A gaping goods deficit. America experienced its first modern goods deficit in 1971, a product of the postwar industrial revival in Europe and Japan.

Every month has a different market flavor, from Chinese growth to easing of Federal Reserve policy. To illustrate this, I conducted natural language processing on daily market commentary. The result is a recap, for the last two years, of the various themes that the market has focused on. Since 2023, we have seen the market fret about Chinese growth (summer 2023); over-anticipate Fed easing before paring back expectations (winter 23/24); focus on Japan as the Bank of Japan finally started hiking (spring 2024); analyze actual Fed easing (fall 2024); salivate on potential Chinese easing (winter 2024); and stress about tariffs (year-to-date).