Macro Mondays: August 11, 2025

0:00Hey guys, before starting this show, I just want to take a minute to talk about our good friends over at Bitwise, the$10 billion global crypto crypto asset manager. On this show, we talk a lot about all the big stories. What's driving markets? What does the data tell us? What are you people missing? And as you already know, crypto is playing a much bigger role in macro. So it's becoming more and more important to really understand the stories driving crypto. Why is Bitcoin going up? Why is Bitcoin going down? What are the institutions doing? What are people missing? That's why Bitwise launched the weekly CIO memo, a quick summary each week of what's really moving crypto markets.

0:33It's written by their CEO, Matt Hogan. Matt's one of the best in business at bridging the worlds of traditional finance and crypto. It's really a great read. It's clear, it's bold, and it's very thoughtful. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to do the latest insights and hottest takes in the crypto world. So head on over to bitwiseinvestments.com slash CIO memo. That's bitwiseinvestments.com slash CIO memo and check it out for yourselves. Always, of course, carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto. It's August 11th and Ready, Set, Connect starts today. two weeks of AI and crypto alpha exclusive to RV Connect.

1:10And yeah, I'm going to be doing a live AMA, so bring the spicy questions. Join before midnight for a 50 % off, plus a bonus pack with a secret video from me. Go to realvision.com forward slash 50 off or click in the link in the description.

1:31Hello there. Welcome to another edition of Macro Monday. We're very happy to have you here. My name is Miguel Rosner, and I'm joined by you, Andreas. Welcome to the show. New glasses, am I right? Yes, you're actually the first one noticing. So, you know, when you buy a new pair of glasses, you're always obviously looking for a reaction. So thank you very much for doing that live on air here. You haven't even asked a question during the day here. I was saving it. Well, it's no secret. We're sitting close to each other. We work on a daily basis here, but this is our weekly show. It's Monday, so that means it's time for our weekly view into the world of macro.

2:11Remember, this is just a sneak peek into what we do. To get the full experience, you need to sign up for the approach here at Real Vision to get our weekly articles, both Andreas' weekly editorials, demo signals, our view on commodities and geopolitics in the drill, and also obviously access to our trades and portfolios and everything else that we sell hedge funds as well. You get all that with the RV Pro. Other than that, we've got a really packed week ahead of us here on Real Vision. Tomorrow at 10 Eastern, we have Shooting the Shit with Roland Julianne. Right after that, 10.30, we have George Concalvish and Ash Paddington.

2:42So lots of great stuff tomorrow. We have Julianne's MIT report coming up. And obviously, updates to the trade portfolios as well. To get full access, as I mentioned, you should go for the Pro Chair. If you're just wanting to dig your toes a little bit into the world of Real Vision, We are currently running a summer sale for the month of August where you get 50 % off of Real Vision Connect subscriptions. So that's a great way to get started. You can access it by realvision.com slash ready, set, connect. We'll post the link in the show notes as well. So do look out for that. As usual, we are streaming this live on Twitter, YouTube, and on Real Vision.

3:21So if you have any questions for us, this is a bit of a compact show, 30 minutes, but we're usually able to fit in a question or two. So please post them and we'll get around as many as we can. So Andreas, as usual, I'd like to start with some of the laughs of the week that we've had. Last week, whenever we post this, and this is streamed on X, the comments to that are usually hilarious. I mean, just look at this one we received last week. Apparently now we're being asked to push FogCoin, I think it's called. I like this one particularly well. This is my profile picture for my wedding. So I really, really love these.

4:04I don't know how you make these, but that's just great stuff. Do you have a take on FogCoin, Andreas? Oh, well, it was the first time I heard about it last Monday when we had a comment section full of this. I guess it's, to some extent, I like Guerrilla marketing and I think this is a pretty decent attempt at doing so. We're sharing it anyway. Thankfully, we haven't seen a similar set of pictures and memes with Hotcoin including ourselves, but I don't know how that would look. Apparently, we could be shooting this shit as well. I don't know what to say about Fodcoin. I think it's relatively new, and I have nothing to add, to be honest.

4:58I think Fodcoin is a small way to go. Anyway, we'll see about that. There's another thing where we need a little bit of help from all you listeners out there. You asked me this today, Andres, how many liberation days are we going to have? Donald Trump has announced a new liberation day. This time around, it's about taking the District of Columbia, taking back the capital, Washington, D.C. I'm not sure if we're going to see a Liberation Day for Ukraine. That might be more appropriate, but let us know in the comment section how many Liberation Day are we going to have? What more can be liberated?

5:30I don't know if you have any takes on this, guys. Well, I guess this is number three, right? Liberation Day number one was the 2nd of April. The second Liberation Day was probably 1st of August. Oh, yeah, okay. Paris Liberation Day 2.0 and now we have the liberation of DC today if you're with us live from DC let us know whether DC has actually been liberated yet but as far as I understand the National Guard will be guarding the streets basically as of later this afternoon so what could be liberated from here well Ukraine is a good guess Greenland. Greenland. My guess is that the banking system could be liberated from legislation, from capital constraints.

6:25The Fed could be liberated, yes. So we'll get to at least a handful. That would be my take. And we need a polymarket for this. We absolutely do. Absolutely do. I mean, the one polymark that I keep following is, is Jesus Christ going to return in 2025? I think it's down to about 2%, which is quite a generous odds, in my opinion. But that's the other polymark that I usually follow. We need one for how many liberations stay in this presidential term. The big question, Mikkel, is, you know, one thing is whether you'll win or lose in that polymarket on Jesus returning this year. But what happens elsewhere in markets if he actually returns?

7:10That's the thing. I mean, that's one of the things that I find hard to model. One of the very few things, actually. So a quick break in your regular programming. If you're serious about your future, grab my free report called Prepare for 2030. I think you've got five years to make as much money as possible. And this guide will help you navigate what's coming. The link is in the description. Download it now. But I think it would be quite bullish, but I'm not sure. If you're a wine producer, it might not be the best. I don't know. We're getting off the rail here. This has nothing to do with macro, or perhaps this is the true macro, you could argue.

7:51You asked me to bring in this address, a story about a San Francisco firefighter making over $450 ,000 a year. This has made the rounds on social media because usually the story is that firefighters and other public city employees are underpaid, but there's really some money to be made from overtime here. Yeah. Obviously, this is a piece of anecdotal evidence and you probably do not find many firefighters across the US on this kind of salary package, But I think it is telling for the issue that Scott Besant in particular, but obviously also the border Trump administration inherited. And, you know, even with the tariffs income, we're still on a slippery slope towards a new record deficit this year.

8:51and I think we've seen at least a handful of interesting comments related to both the dollar, to interest rates and the connection to deficits just over the past three or four days. So that was why I wanted to bring this laugh of the week. I don't think many firefighters are worth 500. And I don't know whether this guy was involved in the Pacific Palisades but fire, was it earlier this year? but they certainly could have used some competent people there. But never mind. This is a piece of anecdotal evidence telling about a story, and that's why I wanted to bring it along. Absolutely. We'll get back to the outlook for U.S.

9:31inflation as well, Andreas. On to one of the hot takes that we've seen on social media this week. And for once, we're not doing a Trump this week. Instead, we're doing this that's been making rounds as well. So just talk us through what this chart shows and does and why it's a hot take this week. Well, it's basically the ratio between information tech and the broader S &P 500 index. And a point made by Bank of America's investment strategy team here is that we're running at extremes when it comes to the valuation of technology companies relative to the rest of the index. My question is whether it makes any sense at all to compare technology in 2025 to technology in 1970, I think it is, the last peak that they highlight.

10:26So, you know, technology is exponential by design, and there is nothing exponential around an industrial, in my opinion. There is nothing exponential about a consumer staple. You simply cannot consume staples in an exponential way. of course you could argue that there was a potential to grow the population in an exponential way but that's not going to happen either at least not around now and therefore it is kind of odd to compare something that is inherently exponential to something that is obviously not so these charts showing that consumer stables do not impact the S &P 500 to any large extent anymore relative to tech they completely discard this linearity versus exponentiality, which makes this comparison absolutely bizarre, not even worthwhile spending a piece of paper on.

11:31And having said that, of course, you could see bubbles in valuation, et cetera, but you cannot show it this way. It's absolutely terrible analysis. And sorry to our friends in Bank of America's Global Investment Strategy, it's not telling anything. I have to say that.

12:42Transcription by CastingWords a plus. This one's a much better chart, Andres. This one you chose as the chart of the week. What you're showing here is the correlation between US liquidity and the reserve building. What does this tell you about the outlook? I wanted to bring along this chart because Scott Besson was interviewed in the Japanese media outlet called Nikkei. uh over the course of the weekend and he was explicitly asked about uh the quote unquote strong dollar policy of the u.s administration uh i think a week or two back trump was interviewed right in front of f-1 you know with the engines running it's always a struggle to to actually hear what's going on uh but he he said that he he liked the strong dollar policy uh but it was very expensive from an export perspective to have a strong dollar uh which is why he said that ultimately you earn more money by having a weak dollar.

13:44And ultimately, the US Treasury and the Secretary is in charge of defining the dollar policy. And Scott Besson was explicitly asked about this strong dollar policy and what does that actually mean? And then he said, well, a strong dollar policy is basically a policy that allows the dollar to be used in global trade. It allows the dollar to be a part of global reserves. And it allows the dollar to play a very important role in the whole infrastructure trade and reserve-wise globally. But that has nothing to do with the price of the dollar relative to other currencies. And he said that when we say strong dollar, we do not necessarily mean a strong dollar on the Bloomberg screen.

14:33We mean a strong dollar in terms of utilization. And I think that was the first time it was kind of explicitly stated by the administration that, well, a strong dollar actually means a weak dollar. And why that? Well, this is the dollar index in light blue versus foreign major holders of U.S. Treasury bonds. So on the right-hand side, you have the annual accumulation of Treasury bonds. on the left-hand side, you have the change in the dollar index over the past year. So without this being a perfect correlation, there's certainly a correlation between holdings of treasuries abroad and the dollar index.

15:18So why is it actually easier to accumulate a treasury if you're a foreign investor, if the dollar weakens? Well, look at it this way. It's actually easier to accumulate something that is dropping in value. It would be easier for you, Mikkel, on a private level to accumulate dollars if the dollar weakened, right? You would simply have the ability to buy more dollars with your euros or Danish crowns or whatever you're in possession of. And that's the same thing here. It makes the life of a reserve manager in China or Japan a whole lot easier if the dollar weakens on a trend basis and if dollar liquidity is added to the global system on a running basis.

15:59So I actually think that Scott Besson's view is 100 % meaningful. I mean, you can argue that to define a strong dollar over time, you probably need a slightly weaker dollar because that will allow the dollars to be used in more transactions. It will allow more foreigners to accumulate it, and it will allow the dollars to play an important role in the whole ecosystem of global trade. Of course, it cannot be too weak, but that's not what they're targeting either. They're targeting a slow, mature descent of the dollar value versus peers. We haven't heard a lot about the dollar value versus specific peers in the trade deals that are yet to be fully implemented and signed, right?

16:45But we know that they discussed this topic with Korea. We know that they discussed it with Japan. They've probably discussed foreign exchange policies with China as well. And why these Asian countries are not to any major extent, say, the UK or Europe, etc. Well, in Asia, you have some of the biggest holders of U.S. Treasury debt. And the biggest holders are, to a large extent, more or less official institutions. While if you look at the treasury holding statistics from the UK, we're talking mainly private institutions such as funds and hedge funds, you name it. Meaning that, I mean, Kyustama is, thank God, not ultimately in the driver's seat of the investment strategy of these institutions, right?

17:34While Xi Jinping, he can certainly impact what's going on within the central bank in China, in Japan. And many of these institutions do also lean upon political tailwinds, right? So the point here is that if they really want to move the needle on foreign holdings of treasuries in conjunction with discussing FX policy, they need to strike some deals with Asia. Great point, Andres. Very interesting analysis here. Before we move on to the themes of the week, we were going to talk a little bit about the Alaska meeting and also on the link between the search for a new Fed chair and the U.S. inflation outlook.

18:13couple of listener questions or a listener answer as well from Michael Loman who says on the number of liberation days as many as it takes that's a great answer I guess a question from Jay if you're I don't know if you have a specific opinion on this but otherwise we can talk more generally about Ethereum with ETH on the move can Andreas weigh in on the probability of ETH staking being approved for institutions and how that may be rolled out I don't know if you have a specific talking point on that but But you also tweeted over the weekend that this could be a chatty-bity moment for Ether. Maybe you would just weigh in on what we're seeing in Ether at the moment.

18:49Yeah, well, I actually wrote something on this a few weeks back, and I consider the probability growing and probably growing pretty fast by now. Now, the Genius Act signed into law, it was in mid-July thereabout, is very, very important for this space, not least since it provides the legislative framework for typical boomer institutions, such as the large investment banks, to actually venture into this space. And they've obviously waited for legal clarification to enter this space. what's obviously next is to discuss staking and that's for that matter also a discussion that is relevant for the big ETF holders of ETH I don't have any strong insights on when to expect clarification but I would consider the probability growing as growing I think that's as much as I can say by now it's certainly something that we will continue to look into why do I consider it a chat TPT moment?

19:59Well, it's actually hard to find a technological expert being against blockchain technology, right? It's hard to find someone in the know not already investigating how to utilize blockchains in broader transaction measures such as banking, etc. Visa, MasterCard, etc. They're all investigating this. But for it to have a proper use case as an institution of that size, you need the legal framework in place first. And that is why you can go from – I mean, before ChatGPT was launched, a lot of people talked about, yeah, we've done AI and chat robots and stuff like that for years. Yes, but at some point, something gets sufficiently tangible for it to be used by more or less everyone.

21:04And that's kind of what I think the Genius Act ensures, that something is sufficiently tangible, also from a legal perspective now, for it to have a use case for a lot of people. That's why it's a chat-GBT moment. It doesn't compare, but a chat-GBT moment, in sort of a broad definition, is a moment where something goes from being smart technology to having a use case for everyone. And I think Ethereum has got a use case for most institutions now. Yeah, Ethereum has always been framed as sort of the utility case in crypto. I think that is a big part of the reason why it's making big runs right now.

21:43Christian here from Stefan, the obvious question, You must be expecting this. How high is it going to go? And do you think we'll see a bear market in the 26th? Yeah, I think 26th is going to be a bear market ultimately. I have a lot on the inflation outlook for 26th in the article I'll post on Real Vision later today. But if you look at the cycle dynamics, we probably need to look all the way into the first half of 2026 to see the peak in stuff like Ethereum. and you know i think i've stated this pretty clearly i'm incredibly bullish uh on your theory i'm also incredibly bullish on bitmine um as a consequence uh and uh you know in all transparency we hold positions in it and and and therefore um you know it's always hard to say but but uh i'd i wouldn't rule out that we do a two or three x or something like that i think that's very much within the realm of the feasible outcome space if the use case widens as much as I think.

22:46So I think that can answer the question, Mikkel. I'd like to briefly connect the dots between the dollar, the FX reserves, and the question about Russia. Because, Mikkel, if we look back just a couple of years to the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent moves in global exchange reserves, it was a very, very defining moment for the role of the dollar in the global system. And it especially defined the marginal use case for gold versus soft dollars, as I'd like to state that U.S. treasuries are, in global ethics reserves. So what simply happened after the invasion of Ukraine, the subsequent seizure of everything SWIFT-related and reserves-related from Russia, was that the People's Bank of China, the Reserve Bank in India, etc., they probably had a meeting to look into, okay, what if they seize our stuff?

23:50And you obviously cannot seize a gold bar that is hidden in a cellar somewhere in Beijing or wherever it is, at least not without boots on the ground. So, you know, the Ukraine war had massive ramifications for the dollar. Not immediate ramifications, but slowly but surely we saw the needle moving towards dollar being replaced by gold in FX reserves. and you know beneath the hood is not the most important objective but beneath the hood Trump has asked Scott Besson with a study on how to ensure that the sanctions policy against Russia does not harm the US dollar too much because they're very well aware of this and I also think it's one of the reasons why not the top priority but one of the reasons why they want to end this war I completely agree with you I think it has to be said, I think to a certain extent, that genie has been out of the bottle.

24:49I think it's very, very hard to reverse that trend, to rebuild that trust that's going to take many, many years. But it's absolutely true. I mean, reintegrating Russia, lifting the freeze and sanctions on various assets, it's going to go a very long way in that direction. And I think that is very much part of the bigger gambit that's going on. I think what we're seeing right now, obviously last week I made a bit of fun about the Trump deadline, that the Russians didn't seem to care about it. They cared enough about it to take a meeting with Steve Ritkoff. They cared enough about it to set up a meeting in Alaska.

25:23So I was corrected a little bit there. So allow me to do a quick dive into the Alaska meeting because we're getting a lot of questions on that. I'll expand more in the drill article later this weekend, Russ. I just want to show this map. We've got a lot of questions. Why on earth are they meeting in Alaska? And to be frank, it's probably because it's the only place Putin is confident that he can fly to without being shut down. Because if he went over Europe, he would be afraid to be shut down. So that's probably why they're meeting in Alaska. Just very, very briefly, the negotiations that are going to take place there.

26:02We know that Steve Witkoff discussed with Putin territorial concessions that are going to be part of a potential peace treaty. So we don't know exactly where they're going to draw the lines. That's going to be one of the meetings in Alaska, one of the talking points. Do we draw the line here? Do we draw the line there? Especially around some of the regions that are only partially occupied by Russia. That's not the big question here. there's no question that Russia is going to keep all this territory, no matter if the war goes on or stops. The big question is the political position. That's what you should look out for, because that's what's going to send ramifications across Europe.

26:44Because the big question is, is Putin going to allow the rest of Ukraine? Ukraine is going to be calved up. There's no question about that. Is Putin going to allow the rest of Ukraine to have an army, to be part of the EU or NATO, and to choose their own government. Because part of the reason for this war was to remove, to dematify Ukraine. So those topics are going to be much more critical than the territorial consistence here. You would usually think in terms of territory changing hands when you go to war, but the political consistence are much more important, and that's what you should look out for, also with regards to the mood in Europe over this.

27:22If we get a relatively soft peace where the rest of Ukraine can be integrated and defended by the rest of Europe, that's a very, very good outcome for the West. I don't think that's realistic. And that might also be where these negotiations hit the ground. But one thing also, we got a lot of questions on how are the Ukrainians doing about this? Can you even make it a deal without the Ukrainians chipping in? Well, just look at this opinion, Paul Invest. This is very, very chilling. The green line shows the support for continuing the fight. The dotted line shows the support for ending the war within Ukraine.

27:56This is just one opinion poll, but the image is so clear and it's repeated in other polls as well. The Ukrainians are beginning to grow tired of this war, naturally. And they are probably ready to take a loss and to take a loss into a few regions to get that peace. The question, again, is the political concessions. And we'll expand more on this in the drill later this week. So, Andreas, also this week, also, I think it's tomorrow, the CPI report tomorrow morning. Complete change of scenery here. Sorry about the quick change, but we're running a bit out of time here. Let's just start with the CGI report.

28:36What are you looking at and what are you expecting in this? I mean, in relation to inflation, Russia is not. At least Russia is worth considering the whole inflation supply chain globally. You obviously have oil, natural gas, palladium, uranium, you name it. And in a situation where we have rising electricity prices due to the grid pressure from data centers and AI and all of that, I also think it makes a ton of sense to conclude this war with Russia to try and keep prices contained globally. Obviously, there are other objectives than these solely financial ones that I've talked about and those objectives are kind of countering what's going on in prices and in terms of the dollar.

29:27But anyway, I think this is probably going to be the last super soft inflation report in a whole sort of pamphlet of soft inflation reports. Five months in a row, we've seen inflation coming in below the estimates from economists. I consider the estimates pretty elevated for the report tomorrow. And we've been more or less the only research house on that side of history over the past four to five months. And I think, quite literally, what's happening here? Well, you underestimate the side effects the Trump policy makes on inflation. Everyone's got their eyes on the ball, tariffs, right? But no one is looking at hotel prices in Las Vegas as a consequence of dropping tourism.

30:17No one's looking at the drop in rents that we're currently seeing. I think house prices are down a little bit more than 50 % of all of the counties that we track on a monthly basis now. So, you know, there's a soft patch. Yeah, exactly. And there's a soft patch in, you know, a lot of things related to services right now, which kind of counters what's going on in tariffs and goods, right? on top of that obviously we had this massive front running of tariffs meaning that you have a lot of goods in warehouses that were not taxed when they were imported and you obviously sell those at all prices to some extent so my point here is and we have a full study out on inflation on the platform Real Vision later today is that I think it's too early to expect all of these tariffs effects and And, you know, Powell kept reiterating that, well, it's just around the corner.