X
By continuing you agree to our privacy policy. California and Oregon residents here.

MarketMinder Daily Commentary

Providing succinct, entertaining and savvy thinking on global capital markets. Our goal is to provide discerning investors the most essential information and commentary to stay in tune with what's happening in the markets, while providing unique perspectives on essential financial issues. And just as important, Fisher Investments MarketMinder aims to help investors discern between useful information and potentially misleading hype.

Get a weekly roundup of our market insights.

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter.




      UK Non-Dom Exits Seen Hitting at Least 10%, With More to Come

      By Joe Mayes, Bloomberg, 6/2/2025

      MarketMinder’s View: Plenty of politics here, so we remind you that MarketMinder prefers no party nor any politician and assesses developments for their potential economic and market impact only. According to this article, Britain’s wealthiest non-domiciles (non-doms, UK residents domiciled outside the country) are leaving in droves, raising concerns around UK tax revenues. This is based on one research outfit’s analysis, which estimates that 26,000 non-doms left the UK last year, including some prominent names (e.g., Egypt’s richest person and an heir to one of India’s richest families). Per another estimate, “The Centre for Economics and Business Research think tank has said that the non-dom tax overhaul will be a net cost to the Treasury if more than 25% of those affected leave the country. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s fiscal watchdog, currently assumes the reforms will raise billions of pounds in taxes annually, but it cautions its forecasts are ‘very uncertain’ and assumes only 12% of the UK’s non-doms leave.” As worrisome as these percentages sound, what would the actual losses be? The aforementioned Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates a £2.4 billion in net losses in the first year of changes if half of non-doms left. That is a big number, but it amounts to 0.3% of the £858 billion the UK’s HMRC collected in tax year 2024 – 2025. We aren’t saying non-doms’ exiting the UK doesn’t matter. But when a news story is heavy on speculation and projection, we think it is worth digging into the claims and scaling what an “extreme” scenario actually looks like—doing so can provide critical perspective.


      Asian Manufacturing Activity Stumbles Again Under Weight of Trump Tariffs

      By Kimberley Kao, The Wall Street Journal, 6/2/2025

      MarketMinder’s View: Here is a recap of May’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ indexes (PMIs) that, as the title suggests, show weaker demand for factory-made goods from Asia. This includes South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam—major links in the global supply chain. Mind you, May’s weakness isn’t a shock. American businesses broadly cranked up their manufacturing orders ahead of April’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, so a pothole in the data wouldn’t be surprising—and perhaps the latest PMIs indicate as much. “Major exporting economies such as Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam saw sharp declines in new orders during the month, continuing the downward momentum since the Trump administration announced tariffs on dozens of countries in April. A series of policy U-turns since then—including a trade truce between China and the U.S.—have offered some relief, but also muddied the outlook, leaving businesses hesitant to spend as they question what lies ahead.” As this tariff saga has shown, policy uncertainty can discourage and delay businesses’ plans and investments—executives are loath to take risk if the rules can change again. The weakness highlighted in these PMIs—which show contraction’s breadth, not its magnitude—could be reflecting corporations’ opting to wait for more clarity. We don’t know when that will arrive, but tariff unknowns hurt American companies more than non-US businesses—reason we are more bullish on the latter for the foreseeable future.


      The European Plot to Topple the Dollar

      By Tim Wallace, The Telegraph, 6/2/2025

      MarketMinder’s View: We found this long-ish piece mixed. The thesis: Weakening confidence toward the US opens up an opportunity for the euro to become a (if not the) global reserve currency of choice. We have several issues with this thinking, and to its credit, this article lays out some of those challenges facing euroland. Namely, the eurozone’s capital markets aren’t nearly as deep, open and liquid as America’s—the primary reason underpinning the dollar’s dominance globally. That isn’t likely to change any time soon regardless of the ECB’s rhetoric. “While the US has a vast, deep market for its $36 trillion (£27 trillion) national debt, the eurozone is split into member states with different levels of borrowing and risks. Few jointly issued bonds exist in Europe, so it is not a direct alternative to the big, liquid American market.” At the same time, we disagree with the broader notion the world reserve currency status grants an “exorbitant privilege” to the US. The US Treasury doesn’t receive fees when other nations use the USD in global commerce. If there truly was an exorbitant privilege, America’s long-term interest rates should always be among the world’s lowest among major economies—which isn’t true (they are a tad lower than British gilts and higher than German bunds and Japanese government bonds, according to FactSet).


      Recent
      Relevancy
      Results per page
        Results per page
          UK Non-Dom Exits Seen Hitting at Least 10%, With More to Come

          By Joe Mayes, Bloomberg, 6/2/2025

          MarketMinder’s View: Plenty of politics here, so we remind you that MarketMinder prefers no party nor any politician and assesses developments for their potential economic and market impact only. According to this article, Britain’s wealthiest non-domiciles (non-doms, UK residents domiciled outside the country) are leaving in droves, raising concerns around UK tax revenues. This is based on one research outfit’s analysis, which estimates that 26,000 non-doms left the UK last year, including some prominent names (e.g., Egypt’s richest person and an heir to one of India’s richest families). Per another estimate, “The Centre for Economics and Business Research think tank has said that the non-dom tax overhaul will be a net cost to the Treasury if more than 25% of those affected leave the country. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s fiscal watchdog, currently assumes the reforms will raise billions of pounds in taxes annually, but it cautions its forecasts are ‘very uncertain’ and assumes only 12% of the UK’s non-doms leave.” As worrisome as these percentages sound, what would the actual losses be? The aforementioned Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates a £2.4 billion in net losses in the first year of changes if half of non-doms left. That is a big number, but it amounts to 0.3% of the £858 billion the UK’s HMRC collected in tax year 2024 – 2025. We aren’t saying non-doms’ exiting the UK doesn’t matter. But when a news story is heavy on speculation and projection, we think it is worth digging into the claims and scaling what an “extreme” scenario actually looks like—doing so can provide critical perspective.


          Asian Manufacturing Activity Stumbles Again Under Weight of Trump Tariffs

          By Kimberley Kao, The Wall Street Journal, 6/2/2025

          MarketMinder’s View: Here is a recap of May’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ indexes (PMIs) that, as the title suggests, show weaker demand for factory-made goods from Asia. This includes South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam—major links in the global supply chain. Mind you, May’s weakness isn’t a shock. American businesses broadly cranked up their manufacturing orders ahead of April’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, so a pothole in the data wouldn’t be surprising—and perhaps the latest PMIs indicate as much. “Major exporting economies such as Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam saw sharp declines in new orders during the month, continuing the downward momentum since the Trump administration announced tariffs on dozens of countries in April. A series of policy U-turns since then—including a trade truce between China and the U.S.—have offered some relief, but also muddied the outlook, leaving businesses hesitant to spend as they question what lies ahead.” As this tariff saga has shown, policy uncertainty can discourage and delay businesses’ plans and investments—executives are loath to take risk if the rules can change again. The weakness highlighted in these PMIs—which show contraction’s breadth, not its magnitude—could be reflecting corporations’ opting to wait for more clarity. We don’t know when that will arrive, but tariff unknowns hurt American companies more than non-US businesses—reason we are more bullish on the latter for the foreseeable future.


          The European Plot to Topple the Dollar

          By Tim Wallace, The Telegraph, 6/2/2025

          MarketMinder’s View: We found this long-ish piece mixed. The thesis: Weakening confidence toward the US opens up an opportunity for the euro to become a (if not the) global reserve currency of choice. We have several issues with this thinking, and to its credit, this article lays out some of those challenges facing euroland. Namely, the eurozone’s capital markets aren’t nearly as deep, open and liquid as America’s—the primary reason underpinning the dollar’s dominance globally. That isn’t likely to change any time soon regardless of the ECB’s rhetoric. “While the US has a vast, deep market for its $36 trillion (£27 trillion) national debt, the eurozone is split into member states with different levels of borrowing and risks. Few jointly issued bonds exist in Europe, so it is not a direct alternative to the big, liquid American market.” At the same time, we disagree with the broader notion the world reserve currency status grants an “exorbitant privilege” to the US. The US Treasury doesn’t receive fees when other nations use the USD in global commerce. If there truly was an exorbitant privilege, America’s long-term interest rates should always be among the world’s lowest among major economies—which isn’t true (they are a tad lower than British gilts and higher than German bunds and Japanese government bonds, according to FactSet).