Markets Weekly April 19, 2025

Hello my friends, today is April 19th and this is markets weekly. So this past week we got a lot of shop in the markets and overall I thought it was pretty un-eventful. However, we did have some pretty big developments on the policy front. Specifically, it seems like President Trump is more and more intent on firing cheer power. And of course we got some updates on the trade front as well. So first let's talk about Trump's war on the Fed. And secondly, let's talk about the ongoing trade war.

你好，朋友们，今天是4月19日，这是本周的市场回顾。过去一周市场波动较大，不过总体来说，我觉得没有特别大的事件。然而，在政策方面却有一些重大进展。具体来说，特朗普总统似乎越来越打算解雇美联储主席。此外，我们也收到了有关贸易方面的一些更新。所以首先，让我们来谈谈特朗普对美联储的争斗。其次，我们再讨论持续进行的贸易战。

Starting with the Fed. Now first let's have some context. Now the Trump administration has only been in power several weeks but already they've been making some pretty big changes. I think of it as a counter-revolution across our institutions. The Trump administration has been getting rid of DEI, slimming down the government, abolishing entire agencies, putting pressure on institutes of higher learning and of course trying to get their own people into positions of influence. Now this is totally normal when it comes to some positions, say, Treasury Secretary, but there are also agencies within the federal government that are commonly thought of as independent.

首先来说说美联储。先让我们了解一些背景。特朗普政府上台仅仅几周，但已经在进行一些相当大的变革。我把这些看作是对我们各机构的"反革命"。特朗普政府一直在取消"多元化、公平和包容"政策，精简政府，废除整个机构，对高等教育机构施加压力，当然也在试图让自己的人进入有影响力的位置。对于一些职位，比如财政部长，这完全正常，但联邦政府内也有一些机构通常被认为是独立的。

Now President Trump has been trying to take over these institutions by firing democratic members of these independent institutions and trying to replace them with his own people. They are legal challenges seeing whether or not Trump can do this. Of course, for example, can President Trump fire democratic FTC commissioners and then try to put his own people in? Now, all this is going to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. President Trump would say that, you know, I won an election, I have a popular mandate, I have to carry out the popular will. And to do that, I need to get my people in those positions.

现在，特朗普总统试图接管这些机构，通过解雇这些独立机构中的民主党成员，并试图用他自己的人取而代之。目前有法律挑战正在研究特朗普是否能这样做。例如，总统是否可以解雇民主党的联邦贸易委员会委员，然后尝试安插自己的人选。最终，所有这些问题都将由最高法院决定。特朗普总统可能会说，我赢得了选举，有公众的授权，我必须履行人民的意愿。为了实现这一点，我需要让自己的人进入这些职位。

So this is ultimately something that's going to be decided by the Supreme Court. Now the worry about this to many people is that if President Trump can say, you know, replace FTC commissioners, does that mean that he can also choose his own Fed chair and Fed board members? Does that challenge the independence of the Fed? And if so, what does that mean for markets? Okay, so that's the backdrop and that brings us to last week. So on last week, we heard from Chirpau who gave an interview and we hear some of the highlights of what he said.

因此，最终这件事将由最高法院决定。 许多人担心的是，如果特朗普总统能够更换FTC（联邦贸易委员会）委员，那么他是否也可以选择自己的人担任美联储主席和美联储董事会成员？这是否会挑战美联储的独立性？如果是这样，这对市场意味着什么？ 这就是背景，接下来谈到上周。上周，我们听到了美联储主席鲍威尔的一次采访，并了解了他发言的一些要点。

Some people believe the Fed will intervene if the stock market plummets, the so-called Fed put. Are they correct? I'm going to say no with an explanation. So what I think is going on in markets is, markets are processing what's going on. And it's really the policy, particularly the trade policy. And really the question is, where is that going to come in? Where is that going to land? And we don't know that yet. And until we know that, you can't really make informed assessments that would still be highly uncertain once you know what the policies are. It will still be highly uncertain what the economic effects will be.

有些人认为，如果股市暴跌，美联储会进行干预，这就是所谓的“美联储保护”。他们的看法正确吗？我认为不对，并对此进行解释。我觉得市场上正在发生的是，市场正在消化当前的情况，尤其是政策问题，特别是贸易政策。真正的问题是这些政策最后会如何实施，会产生什么效果。我们目前还不知道答案。在此之前，我们无法做出明智的评估，即便知道政策内容，其经济影响仍然会充满不确定性。

So basically, first off, he's telling everyone that no, the Fed is not going to save the equity market. But then he goes on and he talks about saying that, you know, we got a lot of things happening in the world right now, big changes on policy. And what the Fed is going to do is that they're just going to sit tight and they're going to look at the data and then respond to the data. Basically, he's not signaling that he's going to cut rates anytime soon. He's basically committing to being late because when the weakness shows up in the data, by that time, it will already be late.

他基本上先告诉大家，美联储不会拯救股市。但随后他又提到，当前全球发生了很多事情，政策上有重大变化。美联储的做法就是静观其变，观察数据，再根据数据做出反应。他并没有暗示将很快降息，反而是愿意在行动上保持迟滞，因为当数据显现出疲软的时候，已经为时已晚。

And this, I guess, is not willing, this unwillingness to cut rates seems to have enraged President Trump because the day after he has a press conference with Italian minister and he talks this way about the Fed. So everybody on the road with a spurt, on the road, how he said that the termination of the road, how he not come fast enough. He says he won't even ask him to. Oh, he'll, if I ask him to, he'll be out of there. But I don't think he's, I don't think he's doing the job. He's too late, always too late, a little slow and I'm not happy with him. I let him know it and if I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast, believe me.

这段话的大意是，特朗普总统对美联储不愿降息感到不满，这种不满似乎激怒了他。第二天，他与意大利部长举行新闻发布会并在会上谈到了美联储的问题。他提到，感觉美联储的动作总是太慢，他对美联储主席鲍威尔的表现不满。他表示，如果他想让鲍威尔离职，他会很快做到这一点。

So basically, he's very clearly telling you that, you know, I'm not happy with Tripol and I want to get rid of him. And we also have leaked stories and major media publications saying that Trump has been thinking about firing the Fed for a long time and he's even talked about firing the Fed and replacing him with Kevin Warsh, who was a former Fed governor and in 2018 was also one of the frontman runners to be a Fed chair at the time. Now why does Trump want to fire the Fed in his own words? So prices have been going up. The only thing that's gone up actually is interest rates because we have a federal reserve chairman that is playing politics.

所以，基本上，他很明确地告诉你，我对特里波尔不满意，我想要摆脱他。我们还看到一些泄露的报道和主要媒体的文章，说特朗普一直在考虑解雇美联储主席，并且他甚至谈到过要解雇他，想让凯文·沃什接替这个职位。凯文·沃什是一位前美联储理事，在2018年时也是美联储主席的热门人选之一。那么，特朗普为什么想解雇美联储主席呢？他自己的说法是，物价在上涨，而实际上唯一上涨的只有利率，因为我们有一个在玩弄政治的联邦储备委员会主席。

Basically he thinks that the Fed is being political and he thinks that basically the Fed is trying to screw him so he wants to get his own person in. The strange part of all this is of course if anyone of you knows about the history of Kevin Warsh, you will know that he is actually super hawkish and honestly, probably hasn't made very good policy choices over the past 20 years. So it's unclear why Trump who is unhappy with Tripol because Paul is not cutting rates or replacing someone who is a very long history of being very hawkish. But in any case, that seems to be the current stance.

基本上，他认为美联储在搞政治，并试图对付他，因此他希望安插自己的人。奇怪的是，如果你们了解凯文·沃什的历史，就会知道他其实是一个非常强硬的鹰派，老实说，他在过去20年里可能没有做出很好的政策选择。因此，不清楚特朗普为什么对鲍威尔不减息不满，却想换成一个长期以来立场非常强硬的人。但无论如何，这似乎是当前的态度。

Now this is very concerning to markets because when the markets see a president being able to replace a Fed chair or Fed governors or basically towing with monetary policy, the markets think that maybe the United States is losing independent monetary policy and immediately they begin to be afraid of a scenario. What comes to mind immediately of course is Turkey. Now President Ergodon in Turkey is well known for his influence on monetary policy. Basically appointing yes men and to be governor of the central bank of Turkey.

现在，这对市场来说非常令人担忧。因为当市场看到总统能够更换美联储主席或理事，或者基本上干预货币政策时，市场可能会认为美国正在失去独立的货币政策。于是，他们立即开始担心可能出现的情况。这里立刻让人联想到的是土耳其。在土耳其，总统埃尔多安以对货币政策的影响力而闻名。他基本上任命听话的人来做土耳其央行的行长。

And of course Erdogan is well known for his unorthodox view of monetary policy whereas when inflation is high he thinks that the central bank should cut rates and that actually has not worked out very well. That being said Ergodon has been able to win popular elections in Turkey. He continues to be popular though notably less so than before. So the market is afraid that if President Trump gets this way that this is really bad for financial markets and I think the market is that would be the market reaction of course.

当然，埃尔多安以其对货币政策的非正统观点而闻名。当通货膨胀高企时，他认为中央银行应该降息，而实际上这种策略效果不佳。尽管如此，埃尔多安仍能在土耳其赢得一场又一场的选举，他的受欢迎程度依然很高，不过明显不如从前。市场担心如果特朗普总统也采取类似策略，这对金融市场将是极大的不利，当然，这就是市场可能做出的反应。

So news reports also suggest that Secretary of State Treasury is telling President Trump this is not a good idea. And Kevin Walsh himself is saying that thanks for thinking about me but you not do this maybe you could do this next year when Chair Powell's term is up but if you fire the Fed chair that's really bad. So that's what the market is concerned of and we actually have some really interesting work from Professor Hano of Stanford who does good work. I've read a number of his pieces on the topic where he looks at the data at the past couple weeks and suggests that yes there's actually some indicators in the market that the dollar is losing some of its luster.

新闻报道还暗示，美国财政部长告诉特朗普总统，这不是个好主意。而凯文·沃尔什本人也表示，感谢你考虑我，但你不应该这样做。或许你可以等到明年鲍威尔主席任期结束时再说。如果你现在解雇美联储主席，那是非常糟糕的。因此，市场对此感到担忧。我们实际上有一些非常有趣的研究来自斯坦福大学的汉诺教授，他在这个话题上有很好的研究。我读过他关于此话题的一些文章，他分析了过去几周的数据，指出实际上市场中确实有一些迹象表明美元的吸引力在减弱。

What the professor looks at is the spread between FX hedged German bun yields and the one-year Treasury yield. Now historically speaking, one-year Treasury yields are going to be lower than say FX hedged German bun yields because there is a premium to hold US assets. US Treasury is very liquid, very safe, reserve currency and all that. So people are willing to hold a sign of premium to that and accept lower yields even German buns, hedging for FX currency risk. Now what the professor found is that actually that's going away. That extra would say premium Treasury's command and compared to FX hedged German buns is just not there anymore.

教授关注的是外汇对冲的德国国债收益率与一年期美国国债收益率之间的差额。从历史上看，一年期美国国债的收益率通常会低于外汇对冲的德国国债收益率，因为持有美国资产有溢价。美国国债市场非常流动、安全，美元作为储备货币等因素让人们愿意为此支付溢价，并接受比德国国债更低的收益率，哪怕需要对冲外汇风险。然而，教授发现，这种情况正在改变。与外汇对冲的德国国债相比，美国国债的额外溢价正在消失。

And the disappearance of that coincides with the dollar depreciating significantly against the euro during the past two weeks of turmoil. So that is a little bit of an indicator that foreign investors really are becoming more concerned about the status of the dollar. But of course we also have to keep in mind that there is some degree of panic to all this losing reserve currency, Trump taking control of fed policy and so forth. Now in the US, again the president appoints the Fed Chair but that's also subject to confirmation by the Senate. So it's not like Trump can appoint Don Jr. and then have Don Jr. run monetary policy.

在过去两周的动荡中，美元明显贬值，与此同时某些现象消失。这在一定程度上显示了外国投资者对美元地位的担忧。不过，我们也要意识到，围绕储备货币地位丧失、特朗普控制美联储政策等问题有一定程度的恐慌。在美国，总统提名美联储主席，但这还需要参议院的确认。因此，特朗普不可能随意任命小唐纳德·特朗普来负责货币政策。

And of course at the end of the day, even if President Trump does not fire Chair Powell, he's going to get to appoint his own Fed Chair next year when Chair Powell's term expires. So does one year make a difference? I don't know. Maybe next year everyone can also have the same freak out. But in any case, it is very much something that is alarming the markets. But let's also look at this from President Trump's perspective as well.

当然，归根结底，即便特朗普总统不解雇鲍威尔主席，明年鲍威尔任期结束时，他还是可以任命自己的美联储主席。那么多出的一年有影响吗？我不知道。也许明年大家仍会有同样的担忧。但无论如何，这确实是让市场感到紧张的事情。不过，我们也应该从特朗普总统的角度来看待这一问题。

Now to be clear, President Trump and Chair Powell have had a rocky history. Having President Trump's first term, he very, very memorably tweeted out this. Pondring out loud is the enemy person, Xi of China or Chair Powell. Of course very upset that Chair Powell was not cutting rates back in 2018. And ultimately, Chair Powell did cut rates in 2019 and it seemed like President Trump warmed up to Powell a bit more after that. But again, we're kind of in a deja vu where that same thing is playing out over again.

需要说明的是，特朗普总统和鲍威尔主席的关系一直不太顺利。在特朗普的第一任期内，他非常令人难忘地发过这样一条推文：到底谁是敌人，是中国的习近平还是鲍威尔主席？这显然是因为他对鲍威尔在2018年没有降低利率感到非常不满。不过，鲍威尔最终在2019年降息，似乎特朗普总统对鲍威尔的态度有所好转。但是，现在我们又好像进入了似曾相识的情境，这种情况又再次上演。

So if you're looking at things from Trump's perspective, I think what Trump is thinking is that he's afraid that the Fed is being politicized as he, again, obviously noted, and that they're not acting as an independent agency but acting basically against the President. And it's not unreasonable for him to think that over the past few years, he's seen many major institutions that should be independent to actually go after him. And of course, there's this very memorable op-ed by former New York Fed President Dudley in 2019, suggesting that the Fed should conduct monetary policy in a way to push Trump out of office. Now, President Dudley, former New York Fed President Dudley was the third most important person at the Fed at a time.

所以，如果从特朗普的角度来看，我认为特朗普的想法是，他担心美联储正在被政治化，正如他再次明显提到的那样，他们不再像一个独立机构那样行事，而是基本上在反对总统。从他的角度来看，这样的想法并非不合理，因为在过去几年中，他看到许多本应独立的主要机构实际上在针对他。当然，还有一篇非常令人难忘的评论文章，是2019年由前纽约联储主席杜德利发表的，他在文章中建议美联储应该通过货币政策来迫使特朗普下台。当时，杜德利作为前纽约联储主席，是美联储中第三重要的人物。

So this really is a top-level former Fed official. In addition, President Trump is probably looking at the Fed cutting rates by 50 basis points right before the election last year, acting preemptively, and then looking at the Fed today with oil prices down to egg prices down, and other central banks around the world cutting. And then suddenly, the Fed decided not to act preemptively even as the economy slows. That obviously, it looks suspicious to President Trump. And we don't know whether or not it's politically motivated, can't peer inside someone else's Fed, but that's the concern from a misrespective. So we want to figure out in the coming weeks whether or not that chirp-hull really is fired. Now, President Trump has said that he's going to ratchet up the political pressure hugely, and you see in cleans of that already, there are tweets by Elon, by the pressure on the Fed, and I would expect more and more allies of the President to come in and say that.

这真的是一位高层前美联储官员。此外，特朗普总统可能希望美联储在去年大选前主动降息50个基点，而现在油价、蛋价都下降了，全球其他央行也在降息，但美联储在经济放缓时却突然决定不主动采取行动。对于特朗普总统来说，这显然看起来很可疑。我们不知道这是否出于政治动机，也无法探查美联储内部的想法，但这是目前的担忧。因此，我们希望在接下来的几周内弄清其中的原因。特朗普总统已经表示，他将大力施加政治压力，您已经可以看到一些迹象，比如马斯克的推文，对美联储的施压，我预计会有越来越多总统的盟友站出来表示支持。

That's, this would be very disruptive for the markets in this work to happen. Okay, now the second thing that I want to talk about is updates on the trade war. So this past week, we had Japan come, top-level negotiations with President Trump, and it seems like they left without really anything resolved. Reporting subsequently from Japan suggests that what the President really is upset about is that they want Japan to pay more money because the US is a military base in Japan. Thus supporting, thus basically protecting Japan, wants Japan to shoulder more of that burden. I want the Japanese to buy more American cars. Again, American cars are not that popular in Japan, and to be fair, they aren't very popular in many places outside of the US.

这件事情的开展对于市场来说会有很大冲击。 好，现在我想谈谈关于贸易战的最新情况。上周，日本高层与特朗普总统进行了会谈，看起来他们没有实质性成果。 随后来自日本的报道显示，总统真正不满的是，美国在日本有军事基地，因此在保护日本，美国希望日本承担更多的费用。我希望日本购买更多的美国汽车。然而，美国汽车在日本不太受欢迎，实际上，除了美国以外，美国汽车在许多地方都不太流行。

And they also want to fix the trade, trade situation, want to have more balanced trade. So I'm not sure what could be done to help that, but I think that's what the Mr. Nguyen wants. And Japan has always been a very good ally with the US, so I'm sure there will work something else. Now, on the European Union front, we had Prime Minister Georgia and Meloni of Italy come. It seemed to be a very successful news conference with the President and Meloni, not Meloni, among European leaders, is a bit more closer politically to President Trump at the press conference. She emphasized their agreement on things like controlling immigration and so forth.

他们还希望解决贸易问题，追求更平衡的贸易。所以我不确定可以采取哪些措施来实现这一目标，但我认为这正是阮先生想要的。而且，日本一直是美国的好盟友，我相信他们会找到其他办法。在欧盟方面，我们迎来了意大利的总理乔治亚和梅洛尼。梅洛尼与总统的联合新闻发布会显得非常成功，梅洛尼在欧洲领导人中与特朗普总统在政治上更为接近。她在新闻发布会上强调了他们在控制移民等问题上的共识。

So basically it's the European Union sending the most Trump-friendly face to the US to try to come up with a discussion. And what Prime Minister Meloni seems to want is for Trump to come to Italy and then have a summit at the European level to discuss trade. And Trump seemed to be pretty confident that they would ultimately reach a deal. But again, all of this is preliminary and nothing has been set. Now the biggest move, of course, has to do with China. And all China from there really doesn't seem to have been much development. In fact, on Friday, at the White House website, Trump unveiled this.

基本上，这是欧盟派出一个最受特朗普青睐的人物前往美国，试图展开对话。而意大利总理梅洛尼似乎希望特朗普可以到意大利，然后召开一次欧洲层面的峰会来讨论贸易问题。特朗普似乎对最终达成协议充满信心。但这一切仍处于初步阶段，没有任何确定的信息。现在，最重要的进展当然涉及中国。不过，从那方面来看，似乎并没有太多发展。事实上，就在星期五，白宫网站上，特朗普公布了这一消息。

Now, obviously this is basically blaming the COVID pandemic on China, saying that there were potentially Chinese origins of the COVID virus to be clear. Today we know that this is a very, very reasonable hypothesis for where COVID came from. Obviously, there was a coronavirus lab in Wuhan. And many people, of course, suspect this at the time as well, although there was tremendous suppression of this theory a few years ago. But now here's President Trump kind of creating this on the White House website and reports suggest that President Xi really doesn't like this. So it seems like the trade negotiations are not going super well.

现在，很明显，这基本上是将新冠疫情的责任归咎于中国，认为新冠病毒可能源自中国。今天我们知道，认为新冠病毒可能起源于中国是一个非常合理的假设。显然，武汉有一个冠状病毒实验室。许多人当然也在当时就怀疑这一点，尽管几年前这种理论受到很大压制。但现在，特朗普总统在白宫网站上发表类似言论，并且有报告称，习近平主席对此很不满。因此，看起来贸易谈判的进展并不顺利。

Now what I thought interesting about trade so far is that we've been focusing things a lot from the US perspective thinking that this would be bad for growth and also inflationary. But the ECB meeting this past week with Madame Lagarde shows a different perspective that I thought was pretty interesting. Here's what she said. This could be reinforced by lower demand for Euro-area exports owing to higher tariff and a re-routing of exports into the Euro-area from countries with overcapacity. Adverse financial market reactions to the trade tensions could weigh on domestic demand and thereby also lower inflation. So from the European perspective, this trade war is actually a negative demand shock.

到目前为止，我认为贸易有意思的一点是，我们一直从美国的角度来看待问题，认为这会对经济增长不利，并且会导致通货膨胀。然而，欧洲央行（ECB）在上周的会议中，拉加德女主席展示了一个不同的视角，我觉得这很有趣。她提到，由于关税的提高，欧元区的出口需求可能会减少，同时其他国家因产能过剩而把出口转向欧元区。贸易紧张局势引发的不利金融市场反应可能会对国内需求造成压力，从而降低通货膨胀。因此，从欧洲的角度来看，这场贸易战争实际上是一个负面的需求冲击。

In the US, it's a negative supply shock because the US imports tremendous amount of stuff. Suddenly maybe we're not importing as much. So that suggests potentially higher prices and slower growth from the European side, they are an exporter. So this trade war is actually having a very different impact. If it's a negative demand shock, what that means is lower growth but also lower inflation. So the European ECB, cut rates and the market thinks they will continue to cut rates.

在美国，这是一种负面的供应冲击，因为美国进口了大量的物品。突然之间，我们可能进口的东西减少了。这表明价格可能会上升，经济增长会放缓。而从欧洲方面看，他们是出口方。所以这场贸易战的影响非常不同。如果这是一个负面的需求冲击，这意味着经济增长放缓，但通货膨胀也会降低。因此，欧洲中央银行（ECB）降低了利率，市场认为他们将继续降低利率。

Now if you look across asset classes, oil is down. Again, your major import of energy, so that's downward pressure on inflation. But Madame Lagarde also made a very interesting observation. That trade will be rerouted to Europe. What she's saying is that now that China, again, the largest exporter of the world, workshop of the world, is having more trouble selling into the US, then they are probably going to rerout goods and maybe fill out a Europe.

现在，如果你观察各类资产，石油价格正在下跌。这对你的主要能源进口造成了影响，因此对通货膨胀有下行压力。但拉加德女士也提出了一个非常有趣的观点。她说贸易将会被重新导向欧洲。她的意思是，作为世界最大出口国、中国这个“世界工厂”在向美国出口时遇到了更多困难，他们可能会将商品重新流向欧洲市场。

So that it's going to be down pressure on Europe and many other countries as well, simply because the Chinese are producing all sorts of stuff and they got to go somewhere. So even though it's potentially leading to higher prices in the US, it's actually leading to disinflationary pressures in the European Union and other countries as well. So a very interesting perspective I thought. And so this suggests further divergence in monetary policy.

因此，这将对欧洲及许多其他国家产生下行压力，原因很简单，中国正在生产各种商品，而这些商品需要出口。因此，尽管这可能导致美国的价格上涨，但实际上却对欧盟和其他国家带来了通货紧缩压力。我认为这是一个非常有趣的观点。这也表明各国的货币政策可能会进一步分化。

Although of course the euro has been straight against the dollar. Do the things that I discussed in my note last week. All right, so that's all I've prepared for today. Next week is going to be even more exciting. I think the war against the Fed is not going to end. It will continue to play out over the coming weeks. So let's watch that closely. All right, talk to you all next week.

虽然欧元一直对美元保持强势，但请按照我上周笔记中讨论的事项去做。好了，这就是我今天准备的全部内容。下周会更加精彩。我认为与美联储的对抗不会结束，它将在接下来的几周内继续上演。所以，让我们密切关注这一点。好的，下周再和大家聊。