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Katie Martin
As a global leader in alternatives today, PGM is capturing the potential of tomorrow. So as you look to diversify your portfolio, PGM offers expertise in seeding, developing and managing a broad range of liquid and illiquid strategies. With over $320 billion in alts across public and private markets, we are helping clients achieve their long term goals. Pgm, our investments shape tomorrow today. Pushkin, you know what? The Rolling Stones had a point when they sang that you can't always get what you want. The supposedly all powerful Donald J. Trump is figuring this out too. What he can get is his big beautiful budget, which managed to get through Congress a week or so ago, warts and all. His radical rewiring of global trade is taking a little bit longer though. Right about now is supposed to be the end of the delay on the super aggressive trade taxes he outlined back in April. And yet now we have, surprise, surprise, another delay, albeit with some very punchy tariffs outlined for Japan and South Korea. Now listeners, if you feel like you're losing your marbles and you're trapped in ground hot day, going round and round in circles, then I hear you. I'm exactly the same. So today on the show, we're asking what ties these two major policy platforms together? And crucially, for nerds like us, what markets make of it all? This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin. I'm Katie Martin, a markets columnist here at FT Towers in London, the world's greatest city. And I'm joined down the line from the inferior New York City by Admiral Robert Armstrong from the Unhedged newsletter and his able deckhand, Aiden Reiter, or what is left of him after losing all the moisture in his body on a roasting hot train this morning.
Robert Armstrong
It's true. The good ship Unhedged is in New York waters and it is on fire because the temperature here is enough to just to have wood spontaneously combust.
Aiden Reiter
And Rob and I are on opposite sides of the same train line. And that same train line was not working today.
Robert Armstrong
Was not working today. So it was a rough commute. It was a classic July New York commute.
Katie Martin
Yikes.
Robert Armstrong
The odors, Katie, the odors.
Katie Martin
Aiden, if you're trapped in a small room with Rob right now, then I say goodbye.
Robert Armstrong
Yes.
Katie Martin
So listen, you two, for those of us who are blissfully unaware of what Uncle Sam is up to, get us up to speed here. First of all, Aidan, tell me about this budget.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah. The U.S. congress recently passed Trump's big beautiful bill, which was kind of his all in one big budget package. It was signed into law by the president on July 4th, American Independence Day. And it is a big whopper of a bill. Essentially the main component is it keeps Trump's tax cuts from his first term on the books and enshrines them into law. And then it adds other random tax cuts he promised on the campaign trail. No tax on tips and you know, those types of promises. It also slashes other programs that the government had given out. So it makes changes to how the government pays for health care for poor people. It changes the government's previous electric vehicle subsidies and various electric manufacturing subsidies. And then on top of that, it also raises the US debt limit. So it's just like all the things you could imagine a bill would do are squeezed into this package.
Katie Martin
I think sometimes people on this side of the pond don't realize, but it's literally called the Big. The One Big Beautiful Budget Act. Or like, what's the exact name of it? Like, this isn't just an exaggeration or just hyperbole. This is literally the name on the piece of paper.
Aiden Reiter
It is the bbb, the Big Beautiful Bill, which is also what the Biden administration had their own bbb, which was build back better. So they're copying a little bit.
Robert Armstrong
I do like a bit of alliteration. I will say that in defense of the bill.
Katie Martin
Yeah.
Aiden Reiter
And you know, it's also a really great allusion to what America's credit rating will be in the future.
Katie Martin
Go.
Robert Armstrong
Hey. So the most important thing is that it increases the deficit. Just a few months after we had what might be described as a kind of fiscal scare.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah.
Robert Armstrong
And now we're making the link to the tariff policy. After Trump announced the Liberation Day tariffs on that weird piece of poster board in the Rose Garden, markets suddenly had a little panic about the fiscal future of the United States and bond yields rose and the dollar fell. That has since subsided. That scare. And the Republican Party by a hair has passed a bill that pretty significantly increases the deficit and the debt in the future. So we're going for it. Man, we did not, as a country get scared straight.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah. To put this in context, this bill is expected to add $3 to $4 trillion in debt over the next 10 years, on top of already the US's pretty shaky debt trajectory.
Robert Armstrong
What is our total debt right now?
Aiden Reiter
Do we know that our total debt is $36.1 trillion?
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. So another four on top of that is non trivial. It's pushing it by 10% or something like that.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah, over the course of 10 years. And we should note that a lot of that spending is grouped in the next four years because the tax cuts, like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime are just bunched into the Trump administration and they also, they phased out more of the cuts to be later on.
Robert Armstrong
Yes.
Aiden Reiter
So you're really spending a lot in the next couple of years and then it pitters out over 2028-2034.
Robert Armstrong
I think you mean peters out peters. I don't know what.
Katie Martin
Pitter bread but what's wrong with Peter Budget. Here's the thing, guys. Like so the truest thing that people say in markets is that deficits don't matter until they do. And it's so true. Like you know, deficit levels in major economies around the world, the amount of borrowing that big governments around the world are doing, it's just been ratcheting higher and higher and higher for years. And every now and then like investors have a bit of a freak out about it. Like right now it strikes me that there is at most a very moderate freakout going on around US deficits.
Robert Armstrong
As I said, there was this freak out in April and it was notable and everybody thought it was all over. The US exceptionalism is finished. Foreigners don't trust the dollar. In the last month or so, there is absolutely 0.00 evidence that, that America is dead. Trade continues. The world, you know, the correlations are back in place. I know you love it when America has trouble. Katie, I know this about you. You are an America hater. But the rest of the world is not with you right now.
Katie Martin
Katie, it's just not, you know, reasonable people can disagree about this. There's definitely a backing away from the dollar going on here. But I will grant you that US government bonds are not on fire. I mean there has been a bit of a pickup in yields since the, the big beautiful bill was passed. That means that prices are going down. But it's not dramatic.
Robert Armstrong
No. And if you look at a one year chart, it's not even there. Like the ten year bond and the two year bond are right in the middle. The ten year bond is right in the middle of the trading pattern. It's been in for six or eight months. The two year, it's the trading pattern. It's been for three months. They did tick up a bit. But from the perspective of a mile up, you can't even see this thing.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah, I mean there was a 13 basis point increase over the last what, four days since this bill was passed. That's not nothing. I mean, the market has registered it. It's just not panicking.
Robert Armstrong
But yields are still lower than they were in the middle, and they're still a lot lower than they were in January, so.
Katie Martin
So 13 basis points to humans, that's 0.13 percentage points. And I know that doesn't sound very much. It's quite a lot in, in Bondland, but it's not disastrous for a week.
Robert Armstrong
But it's not a lot, you know. You know, anyway, and there's other places I'm not trying to justify. I'm not saying the market is telling us none of this is a problem. What I'm saying is, and maybe we need to try to explain this, the market doesn't much care and risk appetites for kooky stuff like equities, say, are quite good. We've had a couple of sort of sluggish days on the market, but they're quite good.
Katie Martin
Yep. Stock markets are doing okay. Yeah.
Robert Armstrong
Cathie Wood's Ark Fund, doing quite well, thank you.
Aiden Reiter
For listeners who are lucky to not know what the Ark Fund is, it is a very speculative, tech heavy, very volatile fund.
Robert Armstrong
People love it.
Katie Martin
It's full of, like, wackadoodle tech, you know, mad punts, and it's doing fine.
Robert Armstrong
I mean, the explanation for the market's indifference may be as simple and dumb as this. Markets that go up tend to keep going up. And the momentum just turned out to be more important than the news out of the budget and the news out of the tariffs, because we haven't really talked about the tariffs yet.
Aiden Reiter
But I think on the budget point, and I think it just fits into this broader theme is investors and, you know, other people don't really know what to make at this moment. We're not really sure where tariffs will be. We're not really sure what will go through. You could argue that, yes, this is significantly increasing the US Debt trajectory, but there's A, so much baked into this bill and B, so much uneasiness and uncertainty about the other parts of the US Economy that it's very hard to make a judgment on how much this debt will actually play into the broader economic outlook going forward.
Robert Armstrong
Similarly, on tariffs, I would argue we're sitting there. And look, tariff inflation has not, except in a few niche cases, tariff inflation doesn't seem to be rearing its head. And we don't know where it will. And indeed, we don't know how much of it will rear its head. So when Trump comes out, as he did yesterday, and said we're gonna put, was it 20% or 25% on Korea and South Korea?
Katie Martin
It was about 25.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah, 25. The market's like, well, maybe that won't happen. And maybe if it does happen, it won't matter that much. And there is something to the maybe it won't matter that much point.
Aiden Reiter
I mean, there is for Japan and Korea specifically, there is the argument that it doesn't matter that much already. I mean, the sector specific tariffs, autos, pharmaceuticals, et cetera, are in place and unchanged by those new Trump tariffs on the two countries. And most of the US imports from Japan and Korea are cars.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah. So already covered already. Electronics already accepted.
Aiden Reiter
The effective tariff rate is, I believe goes from like 15.5 to 16%. Like it's really nothing.
Robert Armstrong
That's from Paul Ashworth.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah, that calculation comes from Paul at.
Robert Armstrong
Capital Economics who did some quick math on that. That's what he found.
Katie Martin
Gotta love a bit of math. So, yeah. So there was a moment yesterday where, I'll be honest, I was watching the tennis on the telly where all of a sudden this news broke about these new tariff levels that Trump is thinking threatening or doing, I don't even know, against Japan and South Korea. But the main point is that, like he was supposed to kind of end the pause on the really aggressive tariffs like tomorrow, July 9th, and now, surprise, surprise, it's been pushed out to some time in August. I mean, how long?
Robert Armstrong
And let it be noted, Katie, it's worse than that because Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary and theoretically the adult in the room in Trump economic circles, he keeps mentioning labor day, which is the 1st of September. So it may not even be August, maybe September, there'll be a nip in the air. We'll be drinking pumpkin lattes by the time any of these Trump tariffs get resolved at best.
Katie Martin
Down with pumpkin spice drinks. I know it's early in the year to be getting exercised about this, but they are bad and wrong. Anyway, we digress.
Robert Armstrong
So anyway, it seems like these deadlines just get kicked on forever and listeners will know that. I think they will be just. The kicking will never stop. Yeah, that I think the, the deadline extensions, the taco ing, the can kicking. This is going to be an infinite game. And there was this Politico article yesterday that basically made the point that for Trump, this is fun. Why would he have a hard deadline? You know, people, he keeps the camera on him and he's just noodling around with these numbers. I'm going to get this country or that country and he Gets to write, frankly, semi literate letters to the President of Korea and Japan and with weird capitalization throughout, strange capitalization. It's all, it's, it's all good fun for him. And why would he come to a decision when he could be fiddling around and having a good time instead?
Aiden Reiter
Also, I think it's.
Robert Armstrong
I think there's something to that thesis, frankly.
Aiden Reiter
Also, I think it's just part of his character. One of his former aides said that haranguing the president to talk about policy was like gathering a bunch of squirrels. Like, he's just a guy whose mind wanders in a lot of different ways. You can see it in the way he speaks. So why would he stick to a deadline? That's not how he plays.
Katie Martin
Yeah, yeah. Someone put it to me the other day, it's a bit like, you know, like a kind of game show where there's a kind of wheel and you spin it and you see where your tariff level ends up based completely at random, based on a spinning wheel. It sort of feels a little bit, A little bit like that.
Robert Armstrong
It does.
Katie Martin
But let me ask you, you mentioned that all this inflation that was supposed to come from tariffs is kind of mia, right? It's kind of like missing in action. We don't know where all this inflation is, but it could hit like kind of any minute. In addition, you've got. So Trump outlined some reasonably aggressive tariffs, like we were just saying, against Japan and South Korea. And the market's gone. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Whatever. I feel like that kind of level of. Yeah, yeah, whatever. And the fact that the damage isn't yet coming through in the data is actually potentially a little bit dangerous because that really emboldens Trump to say, see? Told you, doesn't matter, doesn't bring inflation, doesn't trash the markets. I'm going to double down.
Robert Armstrong
Hmm. I mean, of course we've talked a lot on this show about Taco.
Katie Martin
Right.
Robert Armstrong
Trump always chickens out, but there's nothing for him to chicken out about. In other words, so long as the market doesn't really believe or credit the thing he says, it won't challenge him. Right. The point about the early days going back to April again is he made a policy pronouncement, the market freaked out, he folded. Now the market's not even freaking anymore, so there's no folding. So he pushes the game further. Right. So it's kind of almost a game theoretic argument. I agree with you. It does put us in a dangerous situation because it's almost like the Two sides, meaning the administration and the market are almost searching for where the boundary is, where trouble actually starts. They're going to, you know, they're kind of feeling around for where there's actual, you know, where the electric fence is. It's out there somewhere. And if we keep groping around, we'll put our hand on it eventually.
Katie Martin
This is by definition a ridiculous exercise because you don't know where shocks are going to come from until they do. But Rob, if someone did ask you a stupid question on a podcast about where you think the summer shock is gonna come from, then what would you say?
Robert Armstrong
Katie, as you know, to your sorrow, I've been saying every three months for five years that this coming earnings season is particularly important. But just because it hasn't been all that important the last 20 times doesn't mean I won't say it again. We know that profit growth in The S&P 500 is slowing. If it turns out to be slowing faster than we expected, I think that could put markets right on edge. That's candidate number one for me. Candidate number two is I think there is a chance that the trade negotiations between Europe and the us which I think are the big ones, like that's the big daddy of all these deals or so called deals, if that turns ugly, suddenly all these larger questions which we've managed to kind of press into our subconscious will be at the forefront of our markets.
Katie Martin
Yeah, that's reasonable, Aidan. Rob selfishly grabbed two there. But what would you go for?
Aiden Reiter
A weak treasury auction? It doesn't even have to be that weak. It just one where it looks like foreign investors have stepped away meaningfully. We sort of had that early on post Liberation Day, and we had one other weak treasury auction since then. If we have another, especially now that this budget bill is through, I think that would be very concerning. And we've seen again some signs around the world that people might not want to buy what the US Is selling. So there's, you know, the movements in Taiwan's currency, which suggests the Taiwanese central bank and Taiwanese life insurers have turned away from Treasuries. There's little things around the edges like that that could add up to something concerning.
Robert Armstrong
Yeah, Aidan, that's not going to happen. Just secret Treasuries are going to be fine.
Katie Martin
I'm team Aiden here and I think if your most likely candidate for causing some sort of upset like that is Japan, and let's not forget that last year's summer shock came from Japan pretty much at random, it does have form for sparking like weird market flip outs over the summer that correct them but are pretty unpleasant while they last. Japan is the world's largest holder of U.S. government bonds and Donald Trump is going out of its way to annoy Japan. It doesn't take a genius to see how this can go horribly wrong quite quickly. If they were to suggest that, okay, maybe we don't want your stinking bonds if you're going to slap this horrible tariff on us, then Rob's darling US treasury market gets a little bit, a little bit sticky and summer gets a little bit unpleasant. And let's hope that I'm sitting on a sun lounger when it all goes wrong. Leave you guys to it. In the meantime, listeners, we're going to be back in one sec with Longshot. Speaking of alternatives, a podcast from PGym, we take you beyond the headlines, exploring timely insights from the industry experts.
Aiden Reiter
Our belief that sizing really is the key metric to think about in this business. In long, short equity and frankly in any sort of investing, there's really two parts to it. One part is hit rate how many ideas actually work, long or short. But I believe the more important part is the slugging. So for every dollar you lose, how many dollars do you make?
Katie Martin
Tune in to Speaking of alternatives, a podcast from PGym. Right, let's do this. It's time for Long Short. That part of the show where we go long a thing we love or short a thing we hate. Aidan, why don't you go first?
Aiden Reiter
I'm short regressive tax policy. You know, regardless your politics, I think it's bad form to give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and to take vital services like Medicaid away from the poorest Americans. Not just from a political equality standpoint, just from an economic growth standpoint. I think the evidence around trickle down economics is very dubious and I think been fairly disproven multiple times. And I think especially when you have most of your political base is people in the lower quintiles of income. It seems just a strange political proposition.
Katie Martin
So woke these young people who works.
Robert Armstrong
On this show is kind of a nice person. Katie. I never thought that that development would happen.
Katie Martin
Yeah, we need someone nice and it's certainly not you. What have you got, Rob?
Robert Armstrong
I am short Boston Consulting Group. Oh. My colleague Stephen Foley, who is a brilliant reporter, broke this story about how Boston Consulting Group was basically working on a project in Gaza that involved basically the relocation of people. Without going into the details, this is something that consultants should not have approached.
Katie Martin
With a ten foot pole, the Gaza Riviera.
Robert Armstrong
And yet they did. Yeah, it was the Gaza Riviera thing. And you know, whatever you think about this situation, I am consistently surprised by the way that the big consultancies will blithely put their brands at risk, which is really all they have. Yeah, they'll blithely put their brands at risk getting involved in projects that just look awful.
Aiden Reiter
Yeah.
Katie Martin
Where is the moral compass, man? Yeah, listeners, if you haven't read this stuff yet, read it.
Robert Armstrong
Read it.
Katie Martin
Get yourself a nice strong drink before you do. It's. It's a lot. On a much lighter note, I am short hot yoga networking, which my colleague Emma Jacobs has been writing about. This is wrong on all fronts. First of all, yoga. No hot yoga. Hell, no hot yoga networking. Like sort of organized fun with like colleagues or clients or whatever. Triple damnation. Hell no. I'm here for like sporting networking. So I went to the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge. Like a 5.5-ish-k run around Battersea Park. That's fine.
Robert Armstrong
But hot yoga, you draw the line at hot yoga.
Katie Martin
Hot yoga is a bridge way too far. It's a huge no from me, listeners. Bear this in mind. No hot yoga. Definitely no LinkedIn flavored hot yoga. Bad. So please avoid doing that between now and Thursday when we will be back in your ears. If you're listening from New York in particular, stay cool in the meantime. Unhedged is produced by Jake Harper and edited by Brian Urstadt. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. We had additional help from Topher Forges. Cheryl Brumley is the FT's global head of Audio. Special thanks to Laura Clark, Alistair Mackey, Greta Cohn and Natalie Seidler. FT Premium subscribers can get the Unhedged newsletter for free. A 30 day free trial is available to everyone else. Just go to ft.com/unhedged offer. I'm Katie Martin. Thanks for listening. The FT Weekend Festival returns on September 6th at Kenwood House Gardens in London. Register today for debates, tastings, Q&As and more. Speakers include Stephen Fry, David Bedeel, Nikolai Tangen, Nick Clegg, Tim Harford, and many, many more. Plus your favorite FT writers and editors. Register now and claim 10% off using the code FTPodcasts.
Podcast Summary: Unhedged – "Three Surprises That Might Spook the Markets"
Release Date: July 8, 2025
Hosts: Katie Martin, Robert Armstrong, and Aiden Reiter
Published By: Financial Times & Pushkin Industries
In this episode of Unhedged, hosts Katie Martin, Robert Armstrong, and Aiden Reiter delve into the recent developments in U.S. fiscal policy and trade regulations, exploring their potential implications for global markets. The discussion centers around President Donald Trump's newly passed budget bill and the anticipated tariffs on Japan and South Korea, analyzing how these policies might "spook" the markets.
Katie Martin opens the conversation by highlighting the passage of President Trump's comprehensive budget package, aptly named the "Big Beautiful Budget Act" (BBB Act).
02:52 - 05:43).Robert Armstrong underscores the bill's impact on the national deficit:
"The most important thing is that it increases the deficit. Just a few months after we had what might be described as a kind of fiscal scare..." (
04:18)
Despite these significant fiscal changes, Katie Martin observes that market reactions have been surprisingly muted:
"There is at most a very moderate freakout going on around US deficits." (
06:47)
The discussion transitions to Trump's tariff policies, particularly the delays and imposed tariffs on Japan and South Korea.
Robert Armstrong notes the initial market panic following Trump's announcement of the "Liberation Day tariffs":
"After Trump announced the Liberation Day tariffs... markets suddenly had a little panic..." (
04:31)
However, the expected severe inflationary impact from these tariffs has not materialized:
"Tariff inflation has not, except in a few niche cases, tariff inflation doesn't seem to be rearing its head." (
10:15)
Aiden Reiter adds that the effective tariff rate on imports from Japan and South Korea remains relatively low (15.5% to 16%), mitigating immediate concerns:
"The effective tariff rate is, I believe goes from like 15.5 to 16%." (
10:53)
Katie Martin highlights the uncertainty surrounding the implementation timeline of these tariffs, which has been pushed from July to potentially September:
"Supprise, surprise, it's been pushed out to some time in August... maybe September." (
12:00)
Despite the substantial increase in the national debt and the introduction of new tariffs, Robert Armstrong points out that bond yields have only seen a modest rise:
"Yields are still lower than they were in the middle, and they're still a lot lower than they were in January." (
08:27)
Katie Martin concurs, emphasizing that the market remains largely indifferent:
"It's quite a lot in Bondland, but it's not disastrous for a week." (
08:40)
Robert Armstrong suggests that ongoing market momentum may be overshadowing the fiscal news:
"Markets that go up tend to keep going up. And the momentum just turned out to be more important than the news out of the budget and the news out of the tariffs." (
09:26)
The hosts discuss potential triggers that could unsettle the markets further:
Earnings Season:
Robert Armstrong identifies a slowdown in profit growth within the S&P 500 as a primary concern:
"We know that profit growth in The S&P 500 is slowing. If it turns out to be slowing faster than we expected, I think that could put markets right on edge." (
16:09)
Trade Negotiations:
Ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Europe present another risk, especially if they deteriorate:
"If the trade negotiations between Europe and the US... turn ugly, suddenly all these larger questions... will be at the forefront of our markets." (
16:45)
Weak Treasury Auctions:
Aiden Reiter warns that a weak treasury auction could signal diminishing foreign investor confidence:
"A weak treasury auction... could be very concerning." (
17:07)
Katie Martin emphasizes the precarious position of Japan, the largest holder of U.S. government bonds, and how strained relations could have swift negative repercussions:
"Japan is the world's largest holder of U.S. government bonds and Donald Trump is going out of its way to annoy Japan... it can go horribly wrong quite quickly." (
18:12)
In the "Long Short" segment, the hosts share their investment positions based on current market analyses.
Aiden Reiter:
Short Position: Regressive tax policy
Reasoning: He criticizes massive tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to essential services like Medicaid, arguing that such policies do not foster economic growth and disproportionately benefit higher income brackets.
"I think the evidence around trickle down economics is very dubious and I think [it has] been fairly disproven multiple times." (
19:32-20:05)
Robert Armstrong:
Short Position: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
Reasoning: Armstrong disapproves of BCG's involvement in controversial projects, such as relocating populations in Gaza, viewing it as unethical and damaging to the consultancy's reputation.
"Boston Consulting Group was basically working on a project in Gaza that involved basically the relocation of people. Without going into the details, this is something that consultants should not have approached." (
20:16-21:06)
The episode concludes with a light-hearted exchange about the dangers of "hot yoga networking" and reminders for listeners to stay informed about fiscal and trade developments. The hosts emphasize the importance of monitoring upcoming earnings reports, trade negotiations, and treasury auctions as potential indicators of future market movements.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps:
Robert Armstrong (04:18): "The most important thing is that it increases the deficit... the Republican Party by a hair has passed a bill that pretty significantly increases the deficit and the debt in the future."
Katie Martin (06:47): "There is at most a very moderate freakout going on around US deficits."
Aiden Reiter (10:53): "The effective tariff rate is, I believe goes from like 15.5 to 16%. Like it's really nothing."
Robert Armstrong (09:26): "Markets that go up tend to keep going up. And the momentum just turned out to be more important than the news out of the budget and the news out of the tariffs."
Katie Martin (18:12): "Japan is the world's largest holder of U.S. government bonds and Donald Trump is going out of its way to annoy Japan... it can go horribly wrong quite quickly."
Listeners Interested in More Insights:
This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the "Three Surprises That Might Spook the Markets" episode of Unhedged. For the full conversation and additional context, tuning into the original podcast episode is recommended.