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No worries, the transfer will be progressive, and I will leave some time to make the switch.

GEOPOLITICS

Eastern Europe

As Russian forces progress in Donbass is accelerating, many voices are now considering peace, even with Zelensky apparently being ready to trade peace for a NATO membership. Germany Foreign Minister went as far as proposing German peacekeepers in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, which may happen with territorial concessions, according to former NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg.

Germany is wary about playing “Russian roulette” with Germany’s security through ultimatums to Russia (Olaf Scholz). As a reminder, Germany refused to send its long-range Taurus missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory. Scholz appears to be also concerned by the recent test success of Russia’s “Oreshnik” system, capable of hitting Germany in minutes.

While long range missiles delivered to Ukraine didn’t change the situation, the Oreshnik missile strike did.

At the same time, the situation escalates in Georgia, Ma?dan style, with protests by pro-EU who lost the elections getting violent.

The French-born, French ex-diplomat, and ex-NATO staffer Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, declared she will not step down from her position despite the expiration of her mandate, considering the parliament "illegitimate."

However, the Constitutional Court of Georgia has not accepted her lawsuit to invalidate the elections.

A similar situation is also developing in Romania after recent elections, where the opposition party advocating for peace with Russia came largely ahead in the first round with 67% of votes.

Romania constitutional court simply cancelled the elections in this country critical for NATO strategy containment of Russia. The US Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania is highly strategic for NATO allies at a time the major hot-spot in the world is shifting from Ukraine to the Middle East?(the base was used by NATO during the Iraq war).

It seems democracy is only good as long as people vote the way they’re asked to.

Middle East?

Bachar Al Assad was overthrown in less than 10 days by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” al-Qa'ida's former branch in Syria. Assad was supported by the Shia branch of Islam with Iran.

This can be seen as an extension of the CIA “Timber Sycamore” operation started in 2013 with Saudi Arabia (sunni) to overthrow Assad.

HTS is actually a rebranding of Al-Qaeda, formerly affiliated with ISIS. The leader of HTS Muhammad Al Jawlani, now considered moderate while serving Western interests, has a $10 million bounty on his head since 2017 by the US government.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen admitted that leaders of HTS could be removed from the list of terrorists though.

The US and Israel welcome the news as with Assad deposed, the Hezbollah in Lebanon is now cut from its support coming from Iran through Syria. This is a significant win for the West against Russia who failed to save the Assad regime it protected since 2011. The situation is still developing though and Russian bases do not appear to be under threat at this time. This will potentially have massive implications going forward.

Amid the chaos, Israel took the opportunity to push into Syria from the Golan Heights to establish a buffer zone with Israel, and also launched strikes on the port of Latakia and the suburbs of Damascus.

Let’s not forget that the ongoing turmoil in Syria is intertwined with two competing pipeline projects that have been central to shaping alliances and hostilities in the Middle East. One supported by the West and Saudi Arabia, the second by the East and Iran. Everything happening in this region is often based on the control of its energy resources.

There is now a real concern Syria becomes a new Libya, and a new wave of refugees is expected to hit Europe rather shortly.

Asia

South Korea just experienced what may have been the shortest failed coup ever: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced martial law, supposedly because of concerns of?“paralysis of government administration”. The fact is Yoon has an abysmal 25% approval rate and is facing impeachment attempts.

South Korea's parliament rapidly voted 190-0 to lift martial law, and the military command of martial law was disbanded. The Defense minister was arrested for treason.

ECONOMY

The ISM manufacturing PMI printed in contraction for the 8th month in a row in November, 24th of the last 25 months. New orders finally rose amid increased optimism after Trump’s election. Employment also declined, but at a slower rate.

The share of unemployed Americans searching for a job for at least 15 weeks is the highest in 3 years, up to 40% and jumped by ~8 points over the last 2 years.

The US labor market is still weakening, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Foreign born employment returned to its pre-pandemic growth trend, while native-born employment never even recovered to previous levels.Foreign-born employment is accounting for all net job growth over the last 5 years.

Employment numbers would even be worse if the govt had not risen so dramatically over the last years. DOGE will have a lot of work to do.

Donald Trump is threatening at least 9 BRICS nations supporting alternatives to the U.S. dollar to impose a 100% tariff. As the root cause for dedollarization, this further weaponization of the US$ is unlikely to be massively successful. Tariffs are a negotiation tool that already produced effects, with Mexico notably.

China’s 10-year government bond yield has dropped below 2% for the first time in history, at a time the world’s second-largest economy has been going through one of its largest slowdowns in decades. China’s consumer confidence fell to near its lowest level in 30 years, and home prices have declined ~80% from their peak.

China’s economic struggles are real.

MARKETS

New all time highs in the US Equity markets. The US Equity market is the strongest in decades, the S&P 500 being up about 25% this year and on track for its best annual performance in 26 years, and also hitting 50+ all-time highs year-to-date.

Since 2020, US equity funds have seen the most inflows out of any 5-year period in history, above $1 trillion, leaving Europe, Japan, and Emerging Markets combined far behind. Since 2020, the S&P 500 has risen more than 5 times as much as non-US stocks. No wonder money flows to the US.

Since Trump’s election and policies expected to be more favorable to cryptos, Bitcoin prices have soared.

President-elect Trump has officially picked Paul Atkins, a pro-crypto lawyer, to replace Gary Gensler as SEC Chair, and the recent run surpassed February's gains after Bitcoin ETFs were launched in January.?

Bitcoin reached a psychologically significant milestone at $100k, and its market cap topped $2 Trillion.

One can expect that the publicity around this event will increase awareness and speed up its adoption. Multiple US corporations such as Amazon and Microsoft are now considering adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet.

***NOT AN INVESTMENT ADVICE***

For more market comments and Bitcoin reaching 100k, you can always access the video of last Saturday's LIVE here.

See you next week !