News Recap • Week 4 2025

Donald Trump was officially sworn in this week and became the 47th president of the United States. Then, he got to work.

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Trump recap

Trump had a busy first week in office. Here are just some of the things he did or put in motion.

• He said he might impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Feb 1st, citing that the two countries are allowing a vast number if immigrants to enter the US. Investors interpreted Trump’s tariff talk this week positively, enabling equities in both the US and Europe to move higher.
• He reiterated his view on interest rates being way too high, saying they need to come down immediately. Both in the US and the rest of the world for that matter.
• He pardoned 1,500 people who participated in the riot of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• He declared a national energy emergency and ordered the US to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. “The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”
• A little later in the week, he signed an executive order to make US the leader in the crypto space. One of the highlights was the establishment of a working group tasked with researching the opportunity to create a digital asset stockpile within the next 180 days.
• He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, creator of the infamous Silk Road. Ulbricht had spent 11 years in prison after receiving two life sentences plus 40 years, a sentence many people saw as wildly excessive.
• Trump’s SEC revoked the so-called Staff Accounting Bulleting (SAB) 121 which required companies keeping custody of digital assets (i.e., crypto) on behalf of others to account for them as liabilities. Simply put, if a bank wanted to custody $1 billion worth of crypto for its clients, it was required to set aside $1 billion in US dollars as collateral. This essentially made it extremely expensive and impractical for banks to do so. Thus, this move by President Trump can have a massive positive impact on the industry.
• Oh, and he also announced The Stargate project which I wrote a bit about here.

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All in all, the markets seemed to like the direction. This was one of the best first weeks in history for any new US president. The S&P 500 gained 1.74% and nudged a new all-time high.

In other news

Macro

• Joe Biden had a busy couple of days before leaving office, pardoning Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Miley, and members of congress who investigated the January 6 Capital riot.
• Eurozone consumer confidence rose to -14.2 in January from -14.5 in December. In the EU as a whole, sentiment remained stable at -13.3.
• Headline inflation in Japan rose to 3.6% annually in December, much higher than the 2.9% rate measured in November. The core rate landed at 3%, up from 2.7%. While the numbers were in line with expectations, they do strengthen the case for more rate hikes to come. The first came on Friday.
• The Bank of Japan hiked interest rates by 25 basis points from 0.25% to 0.50%, as expected. This is the highest level since 2008. Japan has kept rates extremely low relative to the rest of the world, even after covid where rates were hiked to combat inflation in the US, Europe, and many other places.
• South Korea’s economy grew by just 1.2% in Q4 2024, missing expectations for 1.4% growth. This was the slowest expansion since Q2 2023. The annual growth rate ended at 2%, beating the previous year’s 1.4% gain. The South Korean Kospi index

Other

• OpenAI launched Operator, an AI agent that can perform tasks online on behalf of its user. Tasks include planning vacations, filling out forms, making restaurant reservations, and ordering groceries.
• Elon Musk is now the sole leader of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency after Vivek Ramaswamy left to run for Governor of Ohio.
• The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it was opening dual antitrust probes into Apple and Google.
• Target started rolling back its DEI program, following the lead of Walmart, Meta, and McDonald’s.
• Novo Nordisk finally caught a bid when the company published some positive early-stage weight loss drug trial results. Shares jumped 7.13% on Friday after the news but finished well off if its intraday highs and remain almost 40% off its ATH.

Earnings

• Netflix surpassed expectations by a wide margin and soared to a new all-time high on Wednesday. Q4 earnings per share came in at $4.27 vs $4.20 expected on revenue of $10.25 billion vs $10.11 billion expected. The growth in paid memberships was arguably the most impressive though. The company added a record 19 million new members in the quarter, bringing its total member base past 300 million. Netflix also announced a new round of price hikes.
• Procter & Gamble delivered a small beat on both revenue and earnings. The former came in at $21.88 billion vs $21.54 billion expected while earnings hit $1.88 per share vs $1.86 expected. Shares jumped 1.87%.
• Johnson & Johnson beat quarterly sales and profit estimates. Shares still declined 1.94% after the report though.
• United Airlines presented earnings of $3.26 per share and easily beat expectations for $3.00 on revenue of $14.70 billion. Shares initially jumped to a new all-time high on the news but closed the day down 2.31%. They dropped another 4.6% on Thursday.
• Burberry reported a quarterly sales decline of 4%, beating estimates of 12%. This was enough to send shares higher by 10% on Friday.

Crypto

• Utah proposed a bill to invest public funds in crypto.
• The SEC announced the launch of a “crypto task force” aimed at “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets”.