Marc Chandler

Weekend Show - Doc & Marc Chandler - Is the Fed Irrelevant? Gold Targets vs Rising Rates & USD

• Top takeaway Marc Chandler sees tentative stability in global bond markets — US, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese yields eased slightly in the past week — but worries hotter CPI (year-over-year heading to about 3.6%) could push US rates up again.
• He does not believe the 10-year near 5.3-5.4% is the peak and would need to see it fall back through 5% to be convinced, otherwise sees risk toward 5.5-5.75%.
• He notes Treasury buying has shifted from price-insensitive central banks and sovereign funds to price-sensitive non-bank financial institutions and hedge funds, which means greater volatility ahead.
• On the dollar, he admits his pullback call was wrong: the AI build-out is sucking in world savings (a Dutch-disease-like dynamic), most major currencies look deeply undervalued (yen ~62%, euro ~33% per OECD), and he sees another leg up toward 103 possible.
• He advises dollar-based investors to use the strong dollar to diversify into foreign equities — especially Japanese stocks — and says midterms show no reliable relationship to the dollar, GDP, or rates.

Doc argues the bond market, not the Fed, now drives tightening, and sees gold bottoming near $3,500 and silver at $40-50, possibly not until 2028. He advises holding heavy cash and preferred bonds yielding over 7% while slowly building positions in gold, silver, and beaten-down uranium stocks. Marc Chandler notes global yields stabilizing but sees hotter US CPI risk keeping upward pressure on rates and the dollar firm above 102. Chandler argues the AI build-out is absorbing global savings and lifting the dollar, leaving the yen roughly 60% and the euro about 33% undervalued. Chandler urges dollar-based investors to diversify into foreign equities, especially Japan, to capture both the strong dollar now and future currency appreciation.

Marc Chandler - Jobs Data Surprise, the Oil-Yield Disconnect, and Global Currency Shifts

• Top takeaway Chandler argues the US labor market is best described as a low-hiring, low-firing paradigm: the August 2026 headline of 162K jobs overstated the trend, with the year-to-date monthly average closer to 80K and last August's figure near 20K, and he calls monthly non-farm payroll swings 'statistical noise' rather than substantive change.
• He flags a brewing consumer squeeze, noting August 2026 average hourly earnings fell to 3.1% (a five-year low) while consumer credit is running roughly 50% above last year's monthly average, suggesting households are leaning on borrowing and savings to sustain spending as wages lag inflation.
• Chandler highlights an oil-yield disconnect he calls a 'yellow flag': WTI was up about 9% on the week as of September 4, 2026, yet the US 10-year yield ended the day roughly flat, breaking the usual pattern where higher oil lifts long-end yields.
• He pushes back on the narrative that yen weakness is destabilizing global markets, arguing instead that the roughly 6% US budget deficit is the real force overvaluing the dollar, and he says the dollar/yen correlation tracks US rates more closely than Japanese rate moves.
• Chandler warns that traditional US Treasury demand is fading: central banks have slowed reserve accumulation, Norway's sovereign wealth fund has proposed cutting its bond allocation from 70% to about 50%, and hedge funds running basis trades plus stablecoin issuers are now the larger marginal buyers.

August payrolls beat consensus three times over, yet Fed pricing barely moved; the guest calls monthly noise the new normal. Crude ran 9% on the week while long-end yields barely budged, a yellow flag the guest is watching as a possible oil-bond decoupling. Marc argues the 6% U.S. budget deficit, not BOJ policy, is keeping the dollar overvalued and the yen pinned at 40-year lows. The carry trade unwind reads more like a funding-leg swap from yen to dollar than a full exit from higher-yielders like the Mexican peso. Next Friday's CPI matters more than today's payrolls; a hot core print would add voices for a Fed hike, the guest says.

Marc Chandler - Warsh at Jackson Hole, Fed vs. Treasury Friction, Gold & Silver Pullbacks

• Top takeaway The speaker expects further dollar upside over the next three to four days, arguing that technicals and fundamentals have aligned and that momentum indicators like stochastics have just turned.
• Chandler says the dollar move is a correction within a roughly 95-101 dollar-index range, not a breakout, and advises clients who need to sell dollars to be patient for a better entry.
• The guest is personally long both metals but says gold and silver 'look ugly' technically, projecting gold toward $4,300 and silver back to $62-63 after a key outside reversal in silver from above $70.
• Chandler argues AI-related borrowing by hyperscalers is competing with U.S. Treasuries for capital, contributing to higher long-end yields and a steeper curve alongside large budget deficits.
• The speaker expects soft August jobs (next Friday) and CPI prints and questions whether three Fed dissenters will gain more support at the September FOMC, noting no voters have crossed over yet.

Warsh's Jackson Hole speech hit a hawkish tone — 2-year yield jumped 10 bps, markets now price 100% chance of a Fed hike by year-end. The Fed and Treasury are split: Bessent wants lower yields via buybacks while Warsh prefers a clean market signal, and the friction could persist. The dollar index rebound has more room, with momentum indicators just turning and a 95–101 range likely to hold through the jobs and CPI prints. Gold and silver sold off on the rate/dollar shift; gold looks headed to $4,300 and silver to $62–63 after a key outside reversal day. Hyperscaler borrowing for AI buildouts is swelling Treasury supply, steepening the curve and complicating Fed rate decisions.

Marc Chandler - Slumping Dollar, Global Rate Divergence, Yen Volatility Persists, Tariff Impacts

• Top takeaway Argues the US dollar has rolled over on soft US data — jobs lost in July, weaker retail sales, softer CPI/PPI — and scaled-back Fed hike odds, framing further downside as the "end of the boxer's punch" rather than a breakout given stretched, oversold momentum indicators
• Sets next technical support on the dollar index around $99.20 (200-day MA) and then $98.75–$99.00 (late May/early June lows), but warns lack of follow-through selling could leave the dollar rangebound below 100
• Flags the steepest 2s/10s US yield curve since mid-May, attributing part of the move to a record July US budget deficit and uncertainty around the new Fed chair who has yet to vote for a hike
• Notes BOJ September hike odds have swung from roughly 20% to over 80% while Fed September hike odds fell from about 72% to 32%, yet the yen has not benefited — dollar/yen around 159.55, the highest since the intervention
• Says the yen carry trade has not unwound: Japanese investors used the post-intervention bounce to buy the most foreign bonds and stocks in two years, and argues Swiss franc (Euro-Swiss at new year highs) and US dollar have absorbed the carry funding role

Weaker US data and softer inflation have pushed Fed hike odds down to 8 basis points, dragging the dollar to its softest weekly close. Marc Chandler sees a bear flag forming on the dollar index, with the 200-day moving average near 99.20 as the next downside target. Japanese investors bought the most foreign bonds and stocks in two years the week after intervention, weakening the yen carry-unwind narrative. A record July US budget deficit and roughly $100B in tariff refunds keep fiscal pressure on the dollar, while August 19 Canada tariffs loom.

Brien Lundin & Marc Chandler - Navigating the Precious Metals Rebound & Bond Market Realities

• Top takeaway Marc Chandler argues the US/Japan intervention selling euros to buy yen shows US officials are more worried about the dollar's reserve-currency role than they have let on, and that selling euros without notifying the ECB broke diplomatic protocol as of August 2026.
• He is skeptical the intervention will hold, noting the dollar has already retraced more than a third of its post-intervention losses against the yen by the end of the recording week.
• On gold, Chandler ties the August 2026 rally mainly to a softer dollar, lower US interest rates, stepped-up Chinese (including Hong Kong) reserve purchases and demand from gold-backed stablecoins, with the $4,400-$4,500 zone and the 200-day moving average as the next resistance.
• On rates and the dollar, he argues short-term US rates are the main directional cue for the dollar and that the Fed is unlikely to hike given the soft July jobs report (US lost 23,000 jobs, wages up only 0.1% m/m and 3.2% y/y).

Lundin ties the gold rebound to fading odds of a Fed hike, arguing the deficit and debt math make further rate rises untenable. He expects majors flush with cash to eventually buy growth as pipelines deplete, with juniors likely closing their valuation gap first. Chandler attributes the rally to a softer dollar and lower short-term rates, with central banks and gold-backed stablecoins adding persistent demand. Copper broke above $6.70 on AI-driven data center demand, with $8 copper seen plausible as data capex scales. Chandler says dollar/yen intervention alone cannot hold without BOJ rate hikes, leaving the 155 level as the operative line.

Marc Chandler - Rising Rates, Dollar Strength, Fed Meeting Expectations

• Top takeaway His core view is that rising U.S. rates have to be read through oil, pointing to September WTI up almost 25% in three weeks and almost 8% in the week to July 24, 2026, which reversed the ease central banks felt during the ceasefire.
• He says markets moved to roughly a 1-in-3 chance of a Fed hike the following week from about 1-in-6 a week earlier, driven by higher oil and still-resilient U.S. data.
• He reads the global bond move as investors cutting duration, with 10-year yields up about 50bp year to date in the U.S., 35bp in Europe, 55bp in the U.K. and 72bp in Japan.
• He expects further dollar gains toward roughly 102 to 102.5 on the index, near the 200-week moving average and a retracement of last year's peak near 110.
• He says foreign investors are funding the U.S. current account deficit with record purchases of U.S. equities rather than Treasuries, with foreign central bank holdings at the Fed falling for four straight weeks before rising in the latest week.

Rising oil is the thread tying it together: the guest argues higher crude prices are pushing up Treasury yields and Fed hike odds. The market now prices roughly a one-in-three chance of a Fed hike next week, up from about one in six a week earlier. Foreigners keep buying US equities instead of Treasuries, and the guest sees the dollar tracking short-term US rates. The two-year yield, not the long end, is the cleanest gauge of policy expectations, so the guest watches it first. He expects one hike in Q3 and a second in Q4, but leans against a July move under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

Dana Lyons & Marc Chandler - Metals Seasonality Vs Technicals, US Dollar Strength Vs Diversification

• Top takeaway Chandler argues the dollar's leg up since early May has peaked: on the July 10, 2026 recording the dollar index looked set to settle below its 20-day moving average for the first time since mid-May, with the 5-day average about to cross below the 20-day, the first such turn since the rally began.
• He says a fundamental driver of a weaker dollar could come the following Tuesday, when US CPI is expected to show the first headline inflation decline since the Iran war began; he still thinks one Fed hike this year is prudent (9 of 18 June dot plots showed at least one) but expects softer data to shave the roughly 36 basis points of hikes priced in.
• He traces central banks' shrinking dollar reserves to the 2022 freezing of Russia's reserves, calls the weaponization of reserves a Rubicon that pushed countries to de-risk, and cites an OMFIF survey in which most central banks expect to raise gold and cut dollar holdings, while stressing they move at glacial speeds and that private-sector capital flows, not reserves, drive the dollar.
• He sees China stepping into the vacuum as the US steps back: the PBoC set its dollar reference rate below 6.8 for the first time in three years, record Panda bond issuance is letting borrowers swap dollar debt for cheaper RMB debt, and the Australian dollar has been the strongest G10 currency this year with a hawkish central bank that has hiked three times.
• On gold, he points out it has bled lower from its late-January peak near $5,600 an ounce to about $3,945 by end-June despite central-bank buying by China, Poland and Central Asian banks, so the reserve shift has not been supporting the price.

Dana Lyons expects the metals downtrend to extend, targeting the silver ETF near 48 and the gold ETF near 353 before buying. Gold miners broke support near 77, opening a slide toward 65 where Lyons would cover shorts; copper charts look sturdier. Lyons says lithium and rare earth ETFs retraced less than precious metals and sit near bottoming zones around 68-70 and 80-81. Marc Chandler argues the dollar's May rally has peaked, with an expected soft US inflation print likely pulling rates and the dollar lower. Chandler ties central banks' shift from dollars into gold and the RMB to the 2022 freezing of Russia's reserves; private capital still drives the dollar.

Marc Chandler – US Jobs Report, Q2 GDP, FED Policy, MCA Trade Agreement, Interest Rates, Currencies

• Top takeaway Argues the interest-rate adjustment is probably over or nearly over: as of the July 2, 2026 recording, December fed funds futures price about 30 basis points of tightening this year — one hike fully priced, roughly 20% odds of a second — which he considers prudent given weak jobs data and falling oil.
• Rejects the stagflation label: Q2 2026 growth tracking near 1.2% still runs above the Fed's roughly 1.6-1.7% trend estimate, and inflation is elevated mainly because of the Iran-war and tariff supply shocks — without them he says inflation would be near the 2% target.
• Suggests the dollar index may have peaked in late June around 101.80, and a break below its 20-day moving average could open a further decline of about 10% as the market reins in its hawkish-Fed bullishness.
• Reads June's 57,000 jobs (vs 113,000 expected, prior two months revised down 74,000) as a low-hiring, low-firing labor market: the fall in unemployment to 4.2% came only from participation dropping to 61.5%, while first-half 2026 job growth averaged about 97,000 a month versus 27,000 a year earlier.
• On trade, he says the USMCA stays in effect but, after the administration declined to renew it by the July 1 deadline, moves to annual reviews for up to a decade (it lapses in mid-2036 without renewal); he expects the US to push for higher domestic content and warns many US states would suffer if the pact were dissolved.

June US payrolls rose just 57,000 against a 113,000 forecast and prior months were revised down 74,000, pointing to a low-hiring, low-firing labor market. The guest cautions the drop in unemployment to 4.2% reflects fewer people participating in the labor force, not renewed economic strength. The guest rejects stagflation calls: Q2 growth near 1.2% sits below the Fed's roughly 1.7% trend, and supply shocks rather than demand keep inflation elevated. USMCA stays in force but shifts to annual reviews for a decade, with Washington pushing higher US domestic content and both partners rejecting bilateral deals. With about one Fed hike priced for 2026 and the yen at 40-year lows, the guest sees the dollar's rally possibly peaking.

Marc Chandler – Macroeconomic Movers In Oil, Bonds, Currencies, US Equities, & International Markets

• Top takeaway Argues oil's collapse, with August WTI falling from just above $100 a barrel in mid-May to almost $68.50 by the interview weekend, has unwound nearly the entire war-related move, easing inflation concerns and leading the market to largely reverse the Fed's recent hawkish hold.
• Sees the dollar's breakout to new highs for the year against roughly six or seven G10 currencies as driven by the shift toward Fed hikes, but says a convincing top requires the dollar index to settle back below its late-March high.
• Calls the mega-cap tech rollover unresolved, possibly the end of a bubble or a setback within a bull market, and advises respecting price action while drawing parallels to late-1990s internet-era overbuilding in today's AI speculation.
• Warns, citing a Goldman Sachs point, that US equity supply will increase this year for the first time in many years, making absorption of the new IPO wave the market's key challenge.
• Points to US labor-market strength, about 114,000 average monthly job gains over the first five months of 2026 versus roughly 10,000 last year, as strengthening conviction that the Fed will raise rates again.

WTI (the US crude oil benchmark) round-tripped its war premium, falling from above $100 to almost $68.50 and easing inflation pressure. Markets unwound most of the Fed's hawkish hold, pricing one full hike and roughly a 20% chance of a second this year. The dollar broke its year-long range on rising US short-term rates; the guest wants a break below the March high to confirm a top. Mega-cap tech's rollover so far looks like rotation — hardware, airlines, and financials gained — but passive investors stay tied to broad indexes. The guest flags a returning equity supply wave — SpaceX-led IPOs ending years of shrinking share count — as a market headwind.

Marc Chandler - The Warsh Era Begins: A Hawkish Fed & The Surging US Dollar

• Top takeaway The guest argues Fed Chair Warsh's debut marked a break from the Bernanke-Yellen-Powell continuity, steering back toward a Greenspan-style Fed of strategic ambiguity with minimal forward guidance.
• He notes the market read the June meeting as a hawkish hold: Fed funds futures went from about 20 basis points of cuts priced as of June 12 to nearly 38 basis points of hikes, helping lift the dollar to new yearly highs against the yen and Canadian dollar.
• He attributes the flattening 2s-10s yield curve as of mid-June 2026 partly to Warsh's hawkish tone and partly to the drop in WTI from about $83.35 to roughly $75.70, while widening US rate differentials versus Europe, the UK, and Japan support a stronger dollar.
• He sees markets as priced for perfection and vulnerable to bad news — Middle East escalation or sticky food inflation from fertilizer and pesticide supply shocks — and recommends disciplined trailing stops rather than exiting the still-intact bull market.
• He is watching the dollar index breakout above roughly 101.15 toward 102.5, and expects the market to price in more than two Fed hikes this year if US data holds up.

New Fed Chair Warsh's debut delivered a hawkish hold (no rate change but a tightening tone), with markets now pricing a full rate hike by year-end instead of cuts. Widening US rate differentials versus Europe and Japan broke the dollar index out of its year-long range to new highs against the yen and the Canadian dollar. August WTI crude fell from about 83.35 to 75.70, helping flatten the two-to-ten-year yield curve, but the guest warns fertilizer and pesticide shortages could lift food inflation. The guest argues equities are priced to perfection with greed dominant, so disciplined trailing stops — not panic exits — are the right protection in a late-stage bull market. Watch dollar–two-year yield correlations, at 20-year highs, plus Fed funds pricing near a hike and a half for the next directional cue.

Marc Chandler - Resilient US Economy, Fed Policy Shifts, Dollar & Rates, Gold Outlook

US economy shows surprising resilience with strong Flash PMI data and a 4.3% GDP nowcast, largely fueled by a massive data center CapEx boom. Kevin Warsh's appointment as new Fed Chairman signals a major policy shift, with a rate hike now becoming the market's base-case scenario. Gold is undergoing technical consolidation after failing to hold key support levels, while the US Dollar widens its gap against other major G10 currencies.

Marc Chandler - Weekly Market Recap: Global Bond Sell-Off, Economic Reacceleration, A Surging Dollar

Global bond sell-off is driving yields higher across US Treasuries, UK Gilts, and German Bunds, signaling tightening financial conditions that pressure metal prices. US economic reacceleration is causing a dramatic shift in Federal Reserve rate cut expectations, significantly boosting the US Dollar against other G10 currencies. Commodity markets experienced extreme volatility, with copper reversing from record highs and precious metals facing headwinds from surging yields and a strong dollar.

Marc Chandler - US Economic Data Recap & Why Is the BoJ Intervening In the Currency Markets

US economy shows bifurcation with robust jobs growth and high GDP tracking while consumer sentiment plunges to record lows amid persistent inflation. Bank of Japan's suspiciously timed currency interventions highlight growing global central bank policy divergence, particularly against weak European economic data. Global AI buildout fuels unprecedented weekly gains in Asian equity markets like KOSPI and TAIEX, while Vietnam emerges as a major supply chain winner.

Dave Erfle & Marc Chandler - Gold Stocks & Markets: PM Outlook, Central Bank Meetings, Earnings

Dave Erfle views the current gold market downturn as a technically sound correction, advising investors to strategically accumulate high-quality junior mining stocks. Marc Chandler highlights a global shift toward a 'hawkish hold' policy by central banks, driven by persistent inflation and Middle Eastern supply shocks. The discussion contrasts strong corporate earnings with record-low consumer sentiment, describing a 'K-shaped' economic recovery impacting broader markets.

Marc Chandler - Major Changes Could Be Coming To The Fed

Potential leadership shift at the Federal Reserve to Kevin Warsh could signal a major policy pivot away from two decades of monetary continuity. Revaluing US gold reserves from $42.22 to market prices could inject $500 billion onto the US balance sheet, significantly impacting gold markets. Global central banks maintain a 'wait and see' stance as a new Treasury-Fed accord may limit future Quantitative Easing programs.

Marc Chandler- Market Reaction to Middle East War, the Case for Gold, the Future of the Petro-Dollar

Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are driving market volatility, but technical analysis suggests markets often anticipate major developments before headlines hit. Central banks are accumulating gold as a strategic reserve asset, with potential significant market impact if the U.S. revalues its gold holdings under new Fed leadership. The Federal Reserve remains trapped between slowing job markets and rising energy prices, with latest CPI data showing inflation jumping to 3.3%.

Marc Chandler - The Dollar’s Peak, Metals Volatility, Next Week’s CPI and Jobs Data

• Top takeaway The guest argues the dollar's recent bounce is likely over, calling the index's stall just shy of 98 a lower high within a multi-month bear market and citing Friday's bearish outside-day reversal against EUR/AUD/CAD/NZD as the first sign the countertrend move has topped.
• On gold, he attributes the roughly $600 two-week surge in late January to geopolitics (specifically US threats against a NATO member) rather than fundamentals, and looks for a weekly close back above $5,000 to open a retest of the roughly $5,500 highs in Q1/Q2 2026.
• He calls silver underappreciated as an industrial and strategic metal, noting it became the key driver of solar panel prices near $121 in late January, and despite the deeper sell-off and shallower rebound he wants to see a test of $90 again before committing to higher prices.
• He flags a central-bank policy divergence from the Fed: he expects Japan to raise rates at least once in 2026, sees Australia hiking again in H1, notes the Bank of England's dovish 5–4 hold this past week pushed the next cut into April, and suggests Norway could cut rates again.
• He pushes back on the 'sell America' thesis, citing a BIS study to argue international investors hedged dollar exposure rather than sold US assets, and reiterates his long-term view that the dollar remains 'terribly overvalued,' with the Swiss franc the possible outlier already above fair value, favoring tight-fiscal/looser-monetary dynamics.

The US Dollar bounce may be peaking, with technical "outside day" patterns flagged as a potential reversal signal. Gold's rise against fiat currencies is better read as dollar dynamics than a rejection of money itself, Chandler argues. Dollar-hedged equity trades let investors strip currency exposure out of stock positions, isolating equity performance from FX swings. The 'Sell America' narrative is shaping positioning across currencies and metals heading into a data-heavy week. Upcoming US jobs and CPI prints are framed as the key macro catalysts that could shift dollar and metals outlook.

Marc Chandler - The Great Metals Meltdown: Navigating Market Volatility and the Dollar’s Revenge

• Top takeaway Marc frames the late-January sell-off as a technical correction of an over-stretched move, arguing the dollar likely has more near-term room to recover toward the 96.80-97.40 gap on the index and gold could retrace to roughly $4,600-$4,800 — a 38.2-50% Fibonacci zone of the January rally.
• He flags that several currency pairs closed beyond 3 standard deviations from the 20-day moving average in mid-to-late January, calling it an extreme reading and a contrarian sell signal in his Bollinger Band framework.
• Marc points to U.S. threats of military action over Greenland around Jan 17-19 as the catalyst that accelerated an already-underway trend across metals, currencies, and broader capital markets.
• He characterizes the move as a broad capital-markets story, noting platinum down 22%, palladium down 18%, copper down 6%, and uranium and rare-earth ETFs down 10-11%, with month-end rebalancing by large institutions likely amplifying the selling.
• Marc expects next week's U.S. non-farm payrolls (early call ~80k) to support a near-term dollar bounce, but sees a soft year-over-year CPI the following week — driven by base effects — as the catalyst that caps the bounce and revives the structural dollar bear case.

Silver crashed roughly 30% on Friday, January 30, 2026; Marc Chandler frames the move as a snap-back of an overstretched rubber band. Gold gave back the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of January's rally in a single session yet stayed up about 11% month-to-date. Currency pairs trading more than three standard deviations from their 20-day moving averages flagged a stretched market before the metals reversal. Uranium ETFs (URNM, URNJ) and rare-earth stocks joined the precious-metals sell-off as month-end rebalancing amplified the move. The risk-management takeaway: define an exit, a profit objective, and a pain threshold before volatility returns.

Marc Chandler - Supreme Court Tariffs, Fed Power Plays, and Global Capital Flows

• Top takeaway Marc frames 2026 as the reverse of 2025 — firm dollar and a firm economy early in the year, then weakness with Federal Reserve rate cuts back-loaded into the second half; Fed funds futures were pricing 45 bps of cuts as of Jan 16, down from 50 bps earlier in the week.
• He expects the Supreme Court to rule the emergency-power tariffs were an overreach — a decision the market is waiting on — with a knock-down set to lift stocks and an uphold set to sell off stocks and the dollar on the view that the president would become emboldened.
• He argues tariffs have lifted measured inflation by roughly 0.6% per month (not annualized), per Fed and private-sector economists, meaning the Fed may have cut more in 2025 without them — a frame that anchors his rate-cut outlook.
• TIC data show $212B of net foreign inflows into U.S. stocks and bonds in November 2025; he argues foreigners were mostly hedging dollar exposure last year rather than selling U.S. assets, which he says explains the dollar's resilience despite the trade noise.
• Manufacturing output rose 0.2% in December vs. an expected -0.1% for back-to-back monthly gains, yet the U.S. lost about 75,000 manufacturing jobs in 2025 — he reads that gap as automation, not reshoring, reshaping the impact of tariff policy.

The Supreme Court is expected to strike Trump's emergency-powers tariffs as overreach, but a 'Plan B' likely keeps tariffs alive in some form through 2026. U.S. manufacturing output rose 0.2% in December while 75,000 factory jobs were lost in 2025 — automation, not reshoring, is the real story. Fed funds futures price just 45 bps of cuts in 2026 — back-loaded into the second half — while the 10-year yield breaks above 4.20%. BOJ verbal intervention is breaking the one-way yen trade: dollar-yen fell even as the U.S. 10-year yield rose 5 bps on the day. WTI broke $62 on Iran strike fears but faded to roughly $59 after Trump signaled de-escalation, leaving oil range-bound near $60.

Marc Chandler - 2026 Macro Outlook: Currencies, Commodities & the AI Trade

• Top takeaway The guest argues 2026 will be another difficult year for the US dollar, framing it as still in a bear market that peaked in September 2022, though he expects a near-term bounce to about $99.50 on the dollar index in January before renewed decline of a magnitude similar to 2025.
• He expects the Fed's first 2026 rate cut to land in the middle-to-latter part of Q2, with the curve steepening as the Fed eases into a labor slowdown while inflation remains above target, and notes the long end is also being weighed by the Dutch-led shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution pensions reshaping European bond demand.
• On commodities, the guest sees silver heading to at least $100 and gold to $5,000, citing China's January 1, 2026 silver export restrictions and the US adding silver to its critical minerals list in Q4 2025 as fresh catalysts, and argues a multi-decade commodity cycle is still early.
• He frames politics and economics as 'opposite sides of the same coin' and flags 2026 political risks: US midterms, German state elections with the AfD running ahead in eastern states, UK Reform Party gains in May locals, and a possible Japanese snap election before the spring/late-Q2 G7 given the prime minister's post-China-confrontation popularity.
• On AI, the guest is skeptical and draws parallels to the internet bubble, expecting overcapacity and a shakeout across LLM providers; he favors robotics as a 2026-2027 theme of AI being 'embedded' into things rather than further popularized, alongside quantum computing as the next technology frontier.

Dollar index likely bounces toward $99.50 in Q1 2026 on tax-refund-fueled growth before Fed cuts resume and a longer-term bear market reasserts. Silver is on its way to $100 and gold to $5,000, driven by China's January 1 export curbs and a U.S. critical-minerals designation. AI valuations look extended and overcapacity risks a shakeout, with robotics and quantum computing as the candidates to lead the next leg. Politics now drives markets as directly as economics — U.S. midterms, German state elections, and a possible Japanese snap election reshape the 2026 picture.