Mar-a-Lago Eyes the Caribbean
Thin Trading, Thick Undertow
Sun, Dec 28, 2025 Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets Donald Trump in Florida today, carrying a 20-point peace framework he says is 90% ready, though he told European leaders that he doesn't expect Russia to budge. The sticking points remain the hardest ones: who controls the Donbas, who manages the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and what security guarantees the West will actually enforce. Zelenskyy has signaled willingness to accept a demilitarized zone, a significant concession. Moscow, for its part, has offered nothing. Russia struck Kyiv with one of the year's longest sustained attacks the day before the talks. Ukraine hit an oil refinery deep inside Russia this morning. Closer to home, the Caribbean is becoming an American sea. The US Coast Guard is actively pursuing a third Venezuelan oil tanker, the Bella 1, which refused to stop when interdicted last weekend and has been on the run since. Unlike the Skipper and Centuries, both now docked in Texas with their cargoes seized, this vessel made a U-turn and sailed into the Atlantic. The administration is now considering deploying a specialized Maritime Special Response Team to board it by force. Trump's "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned Venezuelan tankers has drawn condemnation from UN human rights experts, who call it a prohibited use of military force. But with 15,000 troops and 11 warships deployed in the region – the largest US naval presence in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis – the administration is betting economic strangulation will succeed where sanctions alone have not. 76 to 80% of Venezuela's oil goes to China. Beijing has condemned the seizures as violations of international law. The year ends with markets near all-time highs and questions mounting about what supports them. Consumers are spending but not confident. Companies are acquiring but not hiring. The Fed is cutting but can't agree on why. 2026 will show which bubbles hold water.
Sat, Dec 27, 2025 US stocks drifted lower on Friday in thin post-Christmas trading, the S&P 500 slipping 0.03% on well below the usual volume. The index is on track to end the year up 18%, buoyed by deregulation hopes and enthusiasm for AI. But beneath the surface, investors are voting with their feet: active equity mutual funds saw roughly $1 trillion in outflows, the 11th consecutive year of withdrawals and the deepest of the cycle. Where is the money going? Into commodities. Gold and silver hit fresh records on Friday, with silver surging nearly 8% as amateur investors pile into the trade. Both metals are posting their best annual performance since 1979. In trade, Mexico has emerged as the unexpected winner of Trump's tariff regime, its exports to the US surging even as duties were designed to punish it. And in the Gulf, old alliances are fraying: Saudi Arabia struck a UAE-backed faction in Yemen on Friday, a sign that American allies are settling their own scores. The AI buildout that powered this year's rally is straining at the seams. Tech giants have shifted $120 billion in data-center debt off their balance sheets, binding Wall Street to a bet that may or may not pay off. So desperate is the hunger for power that data centers are now turning to aircraft engines—jet turbines bolted onto trailers—to bypass grid connection delays. Oil fell nearly 3% on Friday. The dollar capped its worst week since June. A winter storm cancelled over 1,000 flights across the Northeast. Dealmaking finished the year near $4.5 trillion, the second-best on record. The year is ending quietly, but 2026 will have questions to answer.
Fri, Dec 26, 2025 Something is shifting beneath the surface of US markets. Banks have added $600 billion in market value this year as investors bet the regulatory regime is about to loosen. Tech billionaires are more than $550 billion richer, with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang climbing the ranks as his company moves to absorb top talent from chip rival Groq via a non-exclusive licensing deal that also brings Groq’s founder and other leaders to Nvidia at a figure reported to be around $20 billion. But the AI buildout requires creative financing. Tech giants have quietly shifted $120 billion in data-center debt off their balance sheets, binding Wall Street’s fate more tightly to theirs. Commodities are flashing signals too: gold hit a record, and copper topped $12,000 a ton for the first time on tariff anxiety and supply constraints, while the dollar slides in a year defined by tariffs, metals, and a weaker greenback. Power is consolidating in new places. Family offices have become major power players on Wall Street even as the divide between large and small companies grows starker. Meanwhile, the administration is tightening the screws, launching an inter-agency review of advanced Nvidia AI chip sales to China, overhauling how the H-1B cap is awarded by replacing the purely random lottery with a weighted selection process, and chasing a sanctioned oil tanker across the Atlantic as it veers toward Venezuela. The year is ending not with resolution, but with a market holding its breath.