USD

Trump failed

[T]he price of Bitcoin fell below $70,000 for the first time since November 2024, reversing the gains the cryptocurrency had made since Donald Trump’s re-election. Bitcoin has been declining since hitting a peak of $126,000 in October 2025. Investors have dumped the token despite deregulation and the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in America, which have so far failed to transform the industry.

Economist

US inflation isn’t subsiding. It’s heating up again

Further to

What is worrying Wall street

China’s power, energy and clean technology milestones in 2025

Hedgies prefer non US investments

Easy come, easy go cont’d

Fear of liquidity drying up, so gold and silver prices collapsed?

The incoming Fed head,

Walsh is against the Fed carrying a bloated balance sheet and wants the central bank to reduce its financial market footprint.
As recently as October, Warsh told Fox Business that the Fed should “free up the balance sheet, take money out of Wall Street.”

Reuters

So if there’s less liquidity? A reason for

Prices fell further on Monday. Gold slid 5% to its lowest in more than two weeks, while silver fell more than 7%. Update: Gold was up 3% in the Asia morning to US$4,800 an ounce, a bounce of nearly 9% from Monday lows. Silver traded 5% higher to US$83.34 an ounce.

But can Warsch really reduce Fed;s balance sheet?

Kevin Warsh, tapped to become the next Federal Reserve chair, may want to significantly contract the central bank’s multi-trillion-dollar balance sheet, but experts agree that financial realities strongly indicate accomplishing this goal will be difficult and slow, if it can be done at ​all.

That’s because Fed holdings and the regime that’s grown to manage interest rates in a system that is flush with cash is not easy to wind back while maintaining ‌market stability and achieving monetary policy goals. It could be even trickier for a Fed chair who is likely to seek easier short-term borrowing costs, because anything that notably contracts central bank bond holdings actually tightens financial conditions.

Reuters

Easy come, easy go/ Laughter, a bitter medicine

What goes up, must come down.

Though this was really quick,

Reuters headline

Investors flock to gold, gold miner ETFs in January in bid for safety

Investors flocked to exchange-traded funds of gold, other precious metals and gold miners in January, seeking safety amid geopolitical uncertainty, expectations of further dollar weakness, and growing bets on U.S. interest rate cuts.

‘Pivot to China’?

US: Energy superpower