Collateral Damage

a free post to help you prepare

• Japan’s Election Intervention

• Volatility In The Weeks Ahead

• Epstein’s Collateral Damage

Japan's Election Intervention

Japanese PM Takaichi’s victory is confirmed. Now we wait for market to digest what it means for the Yen, USTs, & SPX.

Question in my mind isn’t if USDJPY spikes... but will Bessent intervene on a spiking USDJPY?

I wrote about this January 24th saying, in essence, that Fed/Treasury “rate check” was a false flag. The result: yen fell and dollar rose as USDJPY pushed back into 158 as expected.

But now, if Takaichi can’t talk ‘down’ USDJPY as it screams into 160/161, then Japan’s Monetary of Finance will likely need to intervene (by selling a bit of treasuries/dollars), but if they need more help, then Bessent could step in.

My bet: any move Bessent makes will trap Treasury & USD bulls.
Dollar would dump, and debasement trades rejoice.

Volatility In The Weeks Ahead

Keep that in mind as we approach another volatility event this week: non-farm payrolls. NFP Wed would be the timing window for more volatility into CPI Friday. Why?

From this must-read weekly “Week Ahead” from Neil Sethi:

“This will be a messy jobs report starting with the second-half of the QCEW revisions (which adjusts estimated employer payrolls to the actual best estimate we have - state unemployment insurance fund contributions).

We got the first half (through March 2025) of that last year. This will revise the rest of 2025 (Apr-Dec).

Last year that resulted in a more than 900k downward revision to 2024 job growth. While that large of an adjustment is not expected, if it’s anything close it will garner plenty of headlines (Jerome Powell for what it’s worth insinuated at one point he’s expecting something like -700k (-60k a month)).

Don’t forget the CTA selling as yet another risk to navigate [ remember my chart ] and these pesky details:

• up tape: -$8.7B

• flat tape: -$19.5B

• down tape: -$58.6B

over the next 1 month:

• up tape: +$21B (modest buying)

• down tape: -$213B (massive selling)

Epstein’s Collateral Damage

I spent a lot of time on twitter/X this weekend - as I did last weekend. Not in pursuit of the ‘next big thing’ to trade or confirmation of my market read. No, I stayed immersed in the saga that is the collateral damage from the Epstein file reveal - from the extensive sex trafficking coverup to the massive money laundering and fraud that is entrenched in both Wall Street and US/EU Governments.

Some popped in to tell me to stick to my knitting on market/economic analysis. Those folks don’t know me.

1. Restriction is not my jam.

2. Policies dictate price.

3. Politics are uniquely intersecting all-things-markets: from investor confidence to serious macro considerations - or what I call, collateral damage that the market does not see yet.

As the perpetrator, fixer & enabler, Epstein is the tick on the tail of the dog of fraud.

The greater problem is that there IS systemic corruption in our financial system that IS facilitated by a corrupt US-Government at the core.

We are blessed to have @RepThomasMassie & company try to shine light on this evil. And it is evil.

Epstein was the liaison for both dark worlds - not just for their deviant appetites & political power abuses.

Outside X, media’s silence speaks volumes. Because:

WE HAVE NO REPUBLIC WITHOUT REPRESENTATIVES and most in power choose not to represent US.

The clear capture of our elected representatives, and colluding branches of government, seem well-coordinated in their conspiring against US.

The backlash, in time, is populism. But populism doesn’t have a leader. It has a pendulum.

Pendulum swings are dangerous - both from the high-speed swings to the fatal fall - creating all kinds of collateral damage from collisions with immovable obstacles along the way.

Ignorance is not bliss.

I hold firm to my core values - Learn. Empower. Protect. - as I research this ‘new world order’ and how this dangerous moral corruption in the background is brought out and confronted.

We each need to process this in our own way.
Mine is to research, share, warn.
And I want to protect you best I can.

The moral corruption is ignored & defended by this Trump administration, so the crimes stay hidden & unpunished.
Or so they hope. And it does feel futile to hope for justice.
But hope is not a strategy.

And so I tweet to help others Learn. Empower. Protect.

My point in all of this is a realization that even if politically, Epstein is Trump’s “shaking ground” for voters, it will be his WAR AGAINST IRAN - for Israel & personal financial gain - that can trigger his end days in the court of public opinion.

We are getting closer. The market just doesn’t see it yet.