Englund

Those of us who have long admired America as a kindred spirit and upholder of the happiest flowering of global prosperity ever known can only watch with horror as the country hurtles towards a full-blown constitutional crisis.  The Supreme Court ruling on Donald Trump’s tariffs – or rather his reaction to it – compounds the unfolding national tragedy. The White House statement announcing the new tariffs is one of the oddest documents I have ever seen.  It proclaims in bold ink that the US has a structural trade deficit of $1.2tn. It says the US net international investment position has collapsed to minus 90pc of GDP, meaning America is in hock to the world for a net $27.6tn. Drawing further attention to this is akin to screaming “fire!” in a crowded theatre.  These figures are indeed alarming, doubly so since Trump is eroding the reputational underpinnings of both the dollar and US debt. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 24 February 2026 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/busine...

Last year, the value of the luxury resale market hit 50 billion euros, equivalent to $59 billions.  The resale business is growing faster than the primary market. The RealReal https://www.therealreal.com/ The problem is the thousands of small resellers popping up every year. Luxury goods are being resold by livestream on social-media platforms, through Shopify accounts. Handbags, one of the most lucrative products for luxury brands, are particularly exposed to the shift.  Young Gen Z consumers are now making nearly half of their bag purchases at secondhand retailers. Rolex could provide a template. The watch brand’s certified preowned program did more than $500 million in sales last year. Wall Street Journal 24 February 2026 https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/the-luxury-resale-market-is-booming-brands-are-struggling-to-cash-in-e614ed4d There is an abundance of fake Birkin bags, for example, which can now be bought at Walmart. Birkin: The Bag, the Woman, the Myth. Ms. Birkin, ...

Denna sida uppdateras Consumer Confidence Improved In February Rose to 91.2.  Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected a reading of 86.8. https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/consumer-confidence-improved-in-february-24c3b70e Stockholmbörsen hakade på Wall Street uppåt, och stänger tydligt upp.  https://www.di.se/live/stockholmsborsen-stanger-pa-plus/ Jamie Dimon JPMorgan acknowledged that there was a growing number of fintech competitors beating JPMorgan in crucial businesses. “There are tons of payments companies: Chime, Revolut , PayPal, Stripe,” he said. “We got our asses kicked in certain parts. We got beat badly. We have to compete at that level too. We can’t just put our heads in the sand.” Wall Streat Journal Feb. 23, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/jamie-dimon-dismisses-fears-over-how-ai-will-hit-jpmorgan-f4e31e35 Anthropic Pushes Claude Deeper Into Knowledge Work Anthropic also on Tuesday announced new “plug-ins,” or customizable agent...

Pay for top bosses at the biggest US banks has reached new records in the past couple of years, surpassing even what chief executive officers got in the pre-crisis peak of 2007.  Someday these vast rewards might run dry. After all, in the age of artificial intelligence, what is a CEO even for? A prediction that many white-collar jobs will be automated away within 12 to 18 months gave markets a scare this month. But few people are yet asking what protects those in the C-Suite from similar future irrelevance.  If the capabilities of autonomous AI keep leaping forward, the importance of executives will surely be downgraded to echo that of the technical staff who watch over robots in a modern car factory. Simple economics tells us that the more work is done by machinery or software, the greater the share of profits that should go to owners rather than any form of labor, no matter how grand the latter’s offices and titles might be today. Paul J. Davies Bloomberg February 23, 2026 h...

USA-depp sänkte Stockholmsbörsen – tungt fall i EQT https://www.di.se/live/usa-depp-sankte-stockholmsborsen-tungt-fall-i-eqt/ European Private Lenders’ Shares Tumble as Selloff Intensifies; EQT  Fears around the strength of their underlying holdings intensified. The sector has fallen steeply so far in 2026, with shares in EQT now down 26% for the year.  A selloff in software stocks spurred by fears over competition from artificial intelligence-powered agents raised concern around the quality of asset managers’ portfolios. Selling accelerated last week when alternative asset management behemoth Blue Owl Capital said it would liquidate $1.4 billion in assets to pay out unhappy investors.  The move shook confidence in the sector, as traders questioned whether investors in asset managers’ funds are willing to ride out a difficult spell. “The underlying holdings get hit, and as a result EQT, Partners Group and others all get hit, too,”  WSJ Pro Feb. 23, 2026 https://www.w...

De stora placerarna, typ pensionsfonder, brukar rotera, vilket är att de säljer några slags aktier och köper några andra aktieslag. Men pengarna på marknaden är oförändrad. Med aktiefonder är det annorlunda. När fondspararna löser in andelar måste fonden sälja och utbetala pengarna. Då slinker pengarna ut ur marknaden. Jag har utan framgång försökt förklara detta för en gammal vän som numera är professor emeritus i nationalekonomi. Det där regleras genom priset säger han. Jaha, säger jag utan att förstå. Men jag blir alltid misstänksam när Maria Landeborn et consortes manar alla att sitta still i båten. Det kan tänkas att vi inom kort kommer att får se nya exempel på det.   Aktiestrategen Maria Landeborn: Marknaden ser genom Trumps tullhot.  Om tullarna skulle bli verklighet, men på en nivå kring 10 till 15 procent, tror Maria Landeborn att marknaden snarare andas ut än reagerar negativt. DI 13 juli 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/07/aktiestrategen-maria-landeborn....

Rising just 1.7% since the start of the fourth quarter, slightly less than the S&P 500 Index’s 3.3% gain over that time.  The shares are barely positive for the year and in the bottom half of performers in the broad equities benchmark to start 2026.  It’s quite the comedown for a company that not too long ago was among the index’s leaders and putting up triple-digit annual percentage gains. Bloomberg 22 February 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-22/nvidia-s-stock-is-so-stuck-even-blowout-earnings-may-not-lift-it Nvidia Poised to Become First $5 Trillion Company https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/nvidia-poised-to-become-first-5.html

The S&P 500 trades at about 21.4 times blended forward 12 months’ earnings, down from 23 times earnings in late October, which is a net positive for long-term investors with diversified portfolios. That’s no bargain, yet it’s healthy to see the ceaseless expansion of multiples finally taking a breather .  Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the S&P 500 market-multiple has increased by a whole number roughly every six months; we were all sleepwalking toward 1999-like valuations and poised to get there as soon as late 2026. Jonathan Levin Bloomberg February 23, 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-23/the-ai-scare-trade-is-heathy-for-the-stock-market  

Just nu lämnar många sparare småbolagsfonder för att i stället gå in i globalfonder eller i indexfonder.  ”Med en sådan här trend, som blivit en ond spiral, är det ganska frustrerande. Det hjälper inte att kunna räkna på bolagen eller att se vilka bolag som rapporterar bra, för det är så mycket utflöden från småbolagsfonderna som i sin tur innebär att förvaltarna måste sälja trots att bolagen går hur bra som helst”, säger Johan Thorén även känd som ”Småbolags-Johan” på mikrobloggen X. DI 23 februari 2026 https://www.di.se/nyheter/fondforvaltaren-enorma-utfloden-en-ond-spiral/ Private equity returned fewer profits to investors for a fourth straight year as the industry sat on $3.8 trillion of unsold assets and struggled to raise money for new funds. Bloomberg February 23, 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-23/private-equity-s-dry-spell-now-worse-than-2008-crisis-bain-says Blue Owl Anxiety Rattles the $1.8 Trillion Private Credit Market Shares of Blue Owl tumbled as...

Blackstone’s infrastructure arm last year struck a $5.6bn deal to buy Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest US marina group and superyacht servicing business. Marinas garner revenues by selling berths or renting them out for seasons or even years at a time. That can offer investors steady sources of cash flow. Financial Times 21 February 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/2a588350-a7f7-460f-900e-812a779d7cde

More competition in the zero-sum world of geopolitics is turning traditional engines of cooperation like trade into new sources of conflict and instability.  As power-hungry elites cling ever more tightly to their perches, populist politics grow stronger and the system destabilizes even further. That’s the doom loop. Large swathes of voters around the world feel disenfranchised and are missing out on economic wealth, paving the way for populists to pounce, and creating a destructive feedback loop between misfiring economics, divided public opinion and fraught geopolitics. The book offers a stark warning from history. “Chronicles of many ancient civilizations reveal a recurring pattern: Extreme concentration of wealth and power among elites typically lead to collapse, with regeneration far from assured,” Prasad writes.  “When economic and political systems are captured by elites to the detriment of the broader population, they eventually come apart. The rot sets in from within ...

Finanspolitiska rådet vakar över ett finansiellt ramverk där bäst före-datum sannolikt gick ut för länge sedan. Göran Perssons gamla budord om att ”den som är satt i skuld är icke fri” är väl den kortaste beskrivningen av det finanspolitiska ramverk som Sverige har levt med i över 30 år. ”Det har tjänat oss väl” brukar den högtidliga sammanfattningen vara.  Det som tog oss ur finanskrisen var mer den de facto-devalvering som skedde när kronan fick flyta fritt. Det var den exportboom som följde när kronan tappade mer än 20 procent av sitt värde som fick svensk ekonomi på fötter.  Den inhemska efterfrågan ströps i stället genom att staten började ta in mer i skatt än den gjorde av med, samtidigt som Riksbanken länge höll räntan på nivåer som i dag skulle få de flesta bolånetagare att krypa på knä. Sparsamheten och det så kallade ”samlandet i ladorna” har också gjort att mycket av det som vi gemensamt behöver finansiera för att hålla landet på rätt spår och främja utveckling, har...

När Edward Grey fick se det ultimatum som Österrike-Ungern hade skickat till Serbien, skrev han ett brev till sin fru. ”Det mest enastående dokument jag någonsin har sett som en stat har skickat till en annan fri och oberoende stat”.  Heller inget nys om att Winston Churchill till sin fru skrev ”det mest insolenta /oförskämda/ dokumentet i sitt slag”.  Än mindre visste vi ett jota om att utkastet till det österrikisk-ungerska ultimatumet formulerades av baron Musulin von Gurmirje, en jämförelsevis junior konsul sedan 1910 för avdelningen för kyrkofrågor och Ostasien.  Att uppgiften gick till denne yngling berodde på hans rykte som utomordentlig stilist. Musulin filade på sin text som en juvelerare på en dyrbar sten – sannolikt med tanke på att han skulle bli historisk – men ingen vars namn skolbarn i Sverige från 1960-talet och framåt någonsin skulle behöva anstränga tungan för att uttala. Om detta mådde ingen berätta i skolan på min tid, på 1970-talet. Historieböcker och lektioner...

  Högsta domstolen slopar Trumps tullar https://www.di.se/live/hogsta-domstolen-slopar-trumps-tullar/ ”Marknaden verkar inte ta någon större notis kring det, det är ju fortfarande upp i USA” Efter en nyhetstät handelsdag stängde New York-börserna uppåt. Efter Stockholmsbörsens stängning klättrade breda S&P 500 med drygt 0,4 procentenheter och summerar därmed dagens uppgång till 0,7 procent.  https://www.di.se/nyheter/new-york-borserna-steg-trots-tullbesked-far-allt-mindre-effekt/ Börsen på rekordnivå efter Trumps tullbakslag Stockholmsbörsen avslutade handelsdagen upp med 0,8 procent för breda index OMXSPI och med 0,7 procent för storbolagsindex OMXS30. I bägge fall var det stängningar på nya rerkordnivåer.  https://www.di.se/live/borsen-pa-rekordniva-efter-trumps-tullbakslag/ The bad-news-is-good-news stock market https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-bad-news-is-good-news-stock-market.html

Is the world running away from American assets? This week US Treasury reported that overseas investors bought a net $1.55tn of long-term US financial assets in 2025, up — yes, up — from a net $1.18tn in 2024.  What does this imply? One obvious point is it shows that fears of a “sell America” capital flight currently are wildly overdone, whatever the world thinks of Trump. The key issue is captured in the so-called net international investment position (NIIP) data, which “measures the difference between US-owned foreign assets and foreign-owned US assets”,  to cite a handy primer from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/may/understanding-net-international-investment-position But one message to absorb from this story is that if the US tech bubble implodes, the pain will spread beyond America. Forbes calculates, for example, that if US equity prices and Foreign direct investment FDI, reverted to 2019 levels,  Norway, Canada, S...

Index för kärninflationen, core PCE, steg 3,0 procent jämfört med samma månad året innan. DI 20 februari 2026 https://www.di.se/live/hogre-inflation-och-lagre-bnp-tillvaxt-an-vantat-i-usa/  Policymakers could leave their 2% target in place formally, but be all right with never quite getting there. And then some years down the line, they could adopt a higher target. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/inflationsmalet-overges-i-tysthet.html Most can’t afford to buy a home. Consumers are downright gloomy about their finances nowadays, for one key reason: Most can’t afford to buy a home. A study published in January in the journal Economics Letters links consumer malaise in large part to the high cost of housing — which the Consumer Price Index undercounts. Entitled “The Cost of Money is Part of the Cost of Living: New Evidence on the Consumer Sentiment Anomaly,” The study was conducted by a group of researchers from Harvard University and the International Monetary Fund. They wr...

Administration officials leaked false information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a deceptive presentation at the United Nations.  This mendacious campaign was shameful and despicable, and helped create today’s national atmosphere of corrosive cynicism and nihilistic paranoia.  But it was, in retrospect, a tacit acknowledgment that public opinion mattered, that a president couldn’t start a war without convincing Americans it was necessary. It was a manipulation of democratic deliberation rather than a negation of it. Compare that episode to Donald Trump’s threatened war with Iran. Michelle Goldberg New York Times 20 February 2026 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/opinion/trump-iran-public-opinion.html “Data is the language of our time,” says a data analytics manager named Alex, sounding a lot like the Palantir chief Alex Karp. This week, The Atlantic reported on Mantic, a start-up whose A....

Jessica Rosencrantz – Vi är tydliga med att medlemskap ska vara meritbaserade. Vi får inte tumma på anti-korruption, på rättsstatens principer eller krav på fria medier. --- Så länge jag / Annika Ström Melin/  minns har det talats om att ett växande EU inte kan låta nejsägarna bestämma takten och inriktningen på samarbetet.  Under otaliga seminarier har jag lyssnat på idéer om att unionen därför borde bestå av olika lager – eller cirklar – där en inre sammansvetsad krets kan driva på, medan andra länder inte behöver delta i allt samarbete. Dessa tankar har delvis redan blivit verklighet. Inget land tvingas att byta sin nationella valuta till euron. Valutasamarbetet betraktas numera i praktiken, om än inte i teorin, som frivilligt.   EU:s fördrag tillåter också så kallat ”fördjupat samarbete” mellan minst nio medlemsstater, om alla först har försökt men inte lyckats komma överens.  Det senaste exemplet är det nya gigantiska lånet till Ukraina, som därför kunde drivas ...

Blytungt ras i Klarna när Wall Street rekylerad ned Klarna fortsatte nedförsbacken under eftermiddagen och kvällen och stängde till slut ned nästan 27 procent. https://www.di.se/live/blytungt-ras-i-klarna-nar-wall-street-rekylerad-ned/ Tough Day in Private Credit https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/tough-day-in-private-credit.html OpenAI Funding on Track to Top $100 Billion in Latest Round The overall valuation of the company, including the eventual funding, could exceed $850 billion. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-19/openai-funding-on-track-to-top-100-billion-with-latest-round

After Blue Owl rattled the industry by restricting withdrawals from a fund aimed at ordinary investors. Wall Street Journal 19 February 2026 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-02-19-2026/card/tough-day-in-private-credit-hits-stocks-vGjEjYLFsxuvetABMcGC Blue Owl Capital abandoning plans to let investors withdraw their money https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/blue-owl-capital-abandoning-plans-to.html

Om USA skulle anfalla Iran vill president Donald Trump använda brittiska flygbaser för amerikanska stridsplan. Men det tillåter inte Storbritannien, enligt The Times. SvD/TT 19 februari 2026 https://www.svd.se/a/zO7pL9/brittiskt-nej-till-hjalp-vid-irananfall Operation Nickel Grass was the codename for a strategic airlift conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the 1973 Arab–Israeli War.  Meir issued a personal appeal for military assistance, which European nations declined. Nixon, however, ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, to replace all of Israel's materiel losses. Traditional European allies refused to allow re-supply aircraft to land for refueling or even overfly their territory.  Portugal seemed willing to help though, so aircraft were dispatched to Lajes Field in the Azores Islands.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/06/omvarldens-reaktion-ar-for-det-mesta.html

  For nearly a decade the president has badgered European leaders with his call for “strategic autonomy”. They have responded with eye-rolling or indifference.  France’s “Buy European” strategy has long been regarded by its American-equipped friends as a sales pitch for French kit. When France calls for more joint borrowing to rearm Europe, its friends hear: get somebody else to pay.  When France urges more spending on European defence, its friends hear: more contracts for French makers of fighter jets, missiles and engines. De Gaulle’s grandstanding towards America was in part an attempt to preserve the country’s great-power status despite its often brutal mishandling of the retreat from empire. France, wrote the general, “cannot be France without grandeur”.  As European leaders grapple with the implications of the transatlantic rift, a few still hope this is a passing moment. The Economist 18 February 2026 https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/02/18/that-irritating...