Tariff Shockwaves: Are You Prepared for the Fallout?

“It… is a beautiful word. One of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. It’s music to my ears.”

– Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s favorite word could spell chaos for the global financial order.

He used it frequently on the campaign trail, calling it “the greatest thing ever invented.”

That word? Tariff.

Trump’s fondness for it has only grown deeper since the election. In a series of tweets over the past month, he’s threatened a half dozen historic tariffs, including:

Pundits reacted with their usual alarm. They feared hyperinflation, isolationism, and a collapse of global trade. But that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how Trump operates.

And if you want to execute the Trump Trade well, you must understand exactly how he works.

Trump Rule #1: Trump makes huge threats for easy wins

It’s always been his MO. During his first term, Trump threatened to pull out of NAFTA—then settled for a renegotiation of the agreement.

In 2018, he threatened Europe with tariffs. The European Commission promised to import more American soybeans and LNG. In return, Trump said he would “hold off on further tariffs.”

A year later, Trump announced a 5% tariff on Mexican imports, increasing by 5% every month until the border problem was fixed.

Monthly Bitcoin ATM additions in Australia hit 29-month streak

Monthly Bitcoin ATM additions in Australia hit 29-month streak by Ezra Reguerra

Australia has a total of 1,359 Bitcoin ATMs, which is about 3.5% of all crypto ATMs in the world.

Bitcoin automated teller machines (ATMs) in Australia increased monthly for over two years, pushing the number of crypto ATMs in the country near the total number of machines in Europe.

Crypto ATM data tracker Coin ATM Radar shows that in the last 29 months, Australia maintained a net positive addition of Bitcoin ATMs at a stretch. According to the data, Australia has 1,359 ATMs, which account for 3.5% of all Bitcoin ATMs across the globe. While the percentage seems low, Australia ranks third in the number of Bitcoin ATMs globally.

Crypto ATM removed or installed in Australia. Source: Coin ATM Radar

The number of Bitcoin ATMs in Australia almost reached the amount found in Europe. According to the data tracker, Europe has 1,660 Bitcoin ATMs. If exceeded, Australia will be home to the third largest Bitcoin ATM network after the United States and Canada.

United States leads in the number of Bitcoin ATMs

Essential Advice Nobody Else Will Give You

By Dan Ferris

Editor's note: Today, we're continuing our holiday series by revisiting some of our favorite timeless essays from Stansberry Research and our affiliates. In today's piece, which we last shared in 2018, Dan Ferris shares the "negative advice" all great investors follow... and why you can't afford to ignore it.

Also, our offices will be closed tomorrow and Wednesday for Christmas. We'll return to our regular DailyWealth schedule – with more classic investing insights – on Thursday, December 26. Until then, enjoy the holiday!

All investing success requires mastery of a single skill.

If you don't gain this expertise, you'll never make much money as an investor. You might occasionally get lucky... but you'll likely lose everything you make without this skill firmly under your belt.

The skill I'm talking about is saving money.

But it goes even deeper than that...

Fed Cuts by 25 Basis Points, to 4.25%-4.50%, Sees Only 2 Cuts in 2025, Sees Higher Inflation, Higher “Longer-Run” Rates. QT Continues

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The FOMC voted today to cut the Fed’s five policy rates by 25 basis points, with 1 participant dissenting, (Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack who preferred no cut).

And participants see only two cuts in 2025, after economic growth, labor market growth, consumer income and spending, the acceleration of inflation, and big up-revisions of the data this fall have changed the scenario from that infamous soft landing to cruising at a fairly high altitude at an above average speed.

The FOMC also lowered by an additional 5 basis points the offering rate of its Overnight Reverse Repos (ON RRPs), which takes the offering rate to the bottom of the range of its rates (4.25%). The minutes of its last meeting disclosed discussions to that effect. We’ll mull this over in a separate article later, but briefly:

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, November Update: Prices Drop in All 33 Big Metros, Most in Austin, Tampa, Dallas, San Antonio

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The dynamics in the housing market are now sort of messy: The lowest demand for existing homes since 1995 has led to rapidly rising active listings, as buyers are on strike because prices are too high. Homebuilders have been building single-family houses at breakneck speed, creating the biggest pile of unsold completed houses since 2009, and they’re throwing around massive incentives, including mortgage-rate buydowns, to move the inventory.

Mortgage rates, which have risen on renewed inflation fears since the Fed started cutting rates, are back to the old normal, before the era of QE started in 2008, and Fannie Mae’s CEO said that people should get used to them. To top it off, renting a nice single-family house is now far cheaper than buying an equivalent house after the mindboggling spike in home prices and the now old-normal mortgage rates.

So, prices in many major metropolitan areas, even in San Diego and Los Angles, have started to sag.