The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality

(December 2025 academic paper)

bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/u...

🚨FRIDAY SET FOR RECORD “WITCHING DAY” Roughly $7.1 trillion in options tied to stocks, ETFs, and indexes are set to expire today, making Friday the largest “witching day” on record, according to Citigroup strategists. These quarterly events occur when multiple derivatives

Truly, genuinely floored by this.

REMINDER TO PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES JOURNALISTS:

The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was amended by the GOP under Trump 45. Eliminating the individual mandate was like drilling a hole in your car’s gas tank. They own this.

Omitting this fact when reporting/interviewing is malpractice, IMO.

The historical relationship between the S&P 500 forward P/E ratio and subsequent 10-year annualized returns shows that investors should expect to get zero in return in the S&P 500 over the coming decade.

Torsten at Apollo

Okay guys sure thing

*ORACLE SAYS FREE CASH FLOW WAS -$10 BILLION IN QUARTER
*ORACLE SAYS COMMITTED TO MAINTAINING INVESTMENT GRADE

here's the Bloomberg chart of 90 day+ credit card delinquency

*JPM'S LAKE SAYS 2025 CARD CHARGE-OFFS EXPECTED TO BE ABOUT 3.3%

so big, if true

10yr yields under control this morning

What's your favorite song of the holiday season? (Title and artist.)

A diverse group of commodities has hurdled multi-year resistance (upper clip). Relative strength versus SPY and GLD, not so much (lower clips).

$TLT short interest jumps to an all-time high 📈📈 Here we go!

Selling picks and shovels in a gold meh

Pretty interested to watch this play out

The 3 bursts of home price growth in the past 30 years:

1999-2005: good affordability, big rate cuts, super loose underwriting/high leverage
2012-2018: good affordability, ZIRP, solid job growth
2020-21: ZIRP, stimmy, 10%+ NGDP growth, low inventory

We have none of that now.

JPMorgan Chase reports that $1.2T of debt is now tied to AI-related companies, making it the largest segment in the investment-grade market (Caleb Mutua/Bloomberg)

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To the extent that it is true that federal money covers healthcare for illegal immigrants, it's because Congress and Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s understood it would be monstrous for it not to. www.thebulwark.com/p/government...

$FDX

(via Apollo/Slok)

At some point we may get a practical lesson in Giffen goods. Not a fun lesson.