Good morning. Jay Powell was efficiently boring in his testimony earlier than the Senate yesterday. The Fed is in no hurry to chop charges, it would deal with the information, it would stay unbiased. Quick-term charges barely twitched. Have been solely the remainder of the world as predictable. E-mail us: robert.armstrong@ft.com and aiden.reiter@ft.com.
What gold is telling us now?
Gold staged a tremendous rally between February and October 2024; the worth rose by greater than a 3rd. This adopted a interval of greater than three years when the disaster asset extraordinaire went sideways, regardless of a roller-coaster trip in rates of interest and threat property. Why gold rallied simply when it lastly did stays barely mysterious however appears to need to do with a structural shift in international demand, notably from central banks.
Unhedged admits to having felt a little bit of reduction — for mental slightly than monetary causes — when gold began buying and selling sideways once more in October. A secure gold value meant one much less complicated factor to consider in a puzzling market thrown into dysfunction by the US presidential election. That hiatus is over, nonetheless. In 2025 gold has surged one other 10 per cent, crashing although the all-time excessive it set three months in the past.
What does this sign about international markets?
The trivial clarification for why gold (or any asset) goes up is that extra folks wish to purchase it. And there may be proof of sturdy demand for gold just lately. The Chinese language central financial institution increased its gold holdings for the third straight month in January. And, in response to the World Gold Council, inflows into bullion-backed ETFs had been $3bn final month, a robust month after notable weak spot in November and December. European gold funds took in $3.4bn, their highest influx in nearly three years. China has good motive to diversify its reserves away from the greenback, and Europe is ready for the US tariff hammer to fall. Increased gold demand is smart in each locations.
Simply as necessary, there may be completely normal macroeconomic logic at work for the reason that gold value actually began to maneuver in mid-January. Actual rates of interest (as proxied by inflation-adjusted 10-year Treasury yields) have fallen by 25 foundation factors — so the chance price for proudly owning gold has been falling. The greenback has weakened, too, offering additional value assist, given the gold is priced in {dollars}. To the extent that these components clarify what’s going on, the thriller isn’t gold. It’s why the “Trump commerce”, which requires a stronger greenback and better long-term charges, has gone into reverse just lately.
What explains the reversal within the greenback and in actual charges, which had been steadily rising since Trump’s re-election started to look probably again in September? Tactically, that is in all probability the central query in markets proper now. There are at the very least three doable explanations. It could possibly be that markets see US financial progress slowing, for causes involving the enterprise cycle, financial coverage or Trump’s fiscal/financial insurance policies. Alternatively, it could possibly be that the greenback and actual charges rose in anticipation of swinging US tariffs (which might naturally assist each), however the market now thinks the Trump administration was bluffing about that. Lastly, the explanation could possibly be technical. Perhaps the Trump trades acquired overcrowded and they’re taking a breather earlier than surging again to life. Maybe a mix of all three explanations is at work. We in all probability gained’t know the true combine till US tariff coverage turns into clearer over the subsequent few months.
Focus in rising market indices
When international fairness markets are dominated by the US, and the US fairness markets are dominated by massive expertise shares, the very best argument for an allocation to rising market shares is diversification. Sadly, because the FT’s EM correspondent Joseph Cotterill identified to us, EM indices have grow to be very top-heavy, too.
Tech — and one tech firm specifically, TSMC — has powered progress within the extra developed “rising” markets akin to China, Taiwan and South Korea. Right here is the weighting of the highest 10 equities MSCI rising markets index in 2019 and 2025, with tech corporations in pink:
TSMC is now greater than 10 per cent of the index, and new tech names are contributing vital weights. In MSCI’s rising markets ex-China index, TSMC is 15 per cent of the index, and tech corporations make up greater than 20 per cent. This can be a development in country-specific indices, too; in response to a report from Morningstar, indices for Brazil, Taiwan, Korea and India have grow to be extra concentrated round their home mega caps, usually in tech.
There may be additionally the difficulty of nation focus. Here’s a chart from Morningstar, displaying how India and Taiwan have taken up increasingly of its EM index since 2019:
Tech focus makes EM indices a much less efficient diversifier in a world portfolio. TSMC, Tencent and Samsung rely closely on the identical AI narrative that drives the Magnificent 7. And stockpicking is tough in concentrated markets when the most important shares have momentum. The alternatives are to hug the index or tackle vital profession threat.
All that focus comes with some upside, although, within the type of progress and valuation. Whereas EM corporations are inclined to have smaller US exposures than their developed market friends, lots of the massive EM tech corporations — notably TSMC and Samsung — do get a big share of their revenues from America. A number of weeks again, we mentioned whether or not proudly owning EU or UK shares would possibly present low cost publicity to US progress, utilizing a value/earnings-growth evaluation — the “peg” ratio. An analogous train makes the EM indices appear to be a reasonable method so as to add progress publicity:
Rising market equities are risky. They require cautious handing. However at a second when progress is normally unavailable at an affordable value, EM stays fascinating, regardless of the focus downside.
(Reiter)
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