Jeroen Blokland

De ECB heeft stablecoins een plekje gegeven in haar Financial Stability Review. Nu mag je in een stuk met daarin de term stabiliteitsbeoordeling verwachten dat het vooral over risico’s gaat, maar dan nog blijft de insteek van de ECB opvallend. Het ongegeneerd willen voortrekken van de traditionele bankensector is meer dan veelzeggend.

Financial markets are under pressure. Not only stocks but also other asset classes are mostly moving lower. Are we dealing with unique factors, or is there a single overarching culprit?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past twelve months, you can’t have missed witnessing one of the strongest gold rallies in recent decades. The number of parroted stories about gold has exploded, often relying on the same comparison. Yet it’s exactly that comparison which shows that not everyone sees the golden bull in the right perspective.

Now that Trump has been taking things a bit easier over the past few weeks, stock valuations have become the topic dominating the markets. Market commentators are tripping over each other to declare how wildly overvalued the big tech names supposedly are. It’s a lot of parroting, really, while the actual numbers tell a more nuanced story.

It took a little longer than expected, but the delayed US inflation figure for October came in just slightly below expectations. That means that, by the time this column is published, the Federal Reserve will have cut interest rates by another quarter point, and—unless something strange happens—another quarter point cut will follow in December.

The title of this column is the Chinese word for “mirage” or “illusion.” Hot air, in other words. Just like the impressive Chinese growth figure that was proudly announced this week.

The word is out! Fed Chair Jay Powell is considering stopping the reduction of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. If you think that balance sheet has slimmed down significantly after three years of quantitative tightening, you’re mistaken. Moreover, Powell is putting himself in an impossible position once again by lowering interest rates at the same time.

So far this year, the euro has appreciated by no less than 13 percent against the US dollar. That drop in the dollar’s value — because that’s what it really is — was first explained as America discarding its “exceptionalism” under Trump.

As I’m still reflecting on the Fund Event 2025, where it became objectively clear that Europe needs to take action and learn to look at and approach things differently, the United States just keeps steaming ahead.

Stocks are extremely expensive, so it’s just a matter of time before the markets collapse. The next mega market crisis already has a name: the bursting of the AI bubble.