What we’re reading (3/5)
“Gold Declines As Strong Dollar, Fed Outlook Outweigh War Premium” (Bloomberg). “Gold declined, pressured by strength in the dollar and the prospect of less monetary easing as the war in the Middle East entered a sixth day with no sign of resolution. Bullion fell as much as 1.7% in US trading as inflation worries stemming from higher energy prices lifted the greenback and Treasury yields. High inflation may prompt the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady or even hike them to contain price pressure. Swaps traders are currently pricing in about 35 basis points of rate cuts by year-end, compared with 60 basis points at the end of last week. That’s negative for bullion as it pays no interest.”
“The February Jobs Numbers Are Coming Out Friday. Here’s What To Expect” (CNBC). “The 2025 labor market has been generously described as ‘unstable,’ with virtually no jobs growth and a slew of headwinds expected to conspire against it. In 2026, though, the buzzword seems to be ‘stable,’ even though conditions seem to be largely the same. The picture continues to be of a low-hire, low-fire climate, where companies are both reticent to lay off employees as demand continues to be strong, but also are leery of adding staff amid uncertainty over tariffs, inflation and geopolitics. However, characterizations coming from Federal Reserve officials and market economists have grown at least a bit more optimistic — stressing the stability, if not the robustness, of the labor market. The difference between this year and last? Expectations.”
“Investors Can Still Outwit AI, But Only If They’re Unpredictable” (Joachim Klement). “What emerges from the data is an interesting split. When dealing with common cognitive biases, like the gambler’s fallacy or base-rate neglect, where genAI can fall back on well-established mathematical formulas, the answers are largely free from bias. One can therefore expect that in forecasting situations in which humans may be subject to such biases, genAI will likely outperform investors made of flesh and bone. But when dealing with problems that have a large degree of qualitative uncertainty or where the answer requires a judgment call, genAI is just as biased as most humans. When the model can’t rely on a mathematical answer, it has to deduce a solution from its training data. And the training data is mostly man-made and thus codifies the same biases as humans. It’s a case of garbage-in, garbage-out.”
“Crypto Fans Have an Alternative to Savings Accounts. Banks Are Freaking Out.” (Wall Street Journal). “Stablecoins aren’t yet widely used as savings or checking accounts, and mostly remain a way for the crypto conversant to buy other digital tokens or transfer money. But the coins are starting to catch on among some crypto users as a way to park money and earn yields—a development that banks are determined to stamp out before it gets any bigger. It is enough of a threat that the tokens are now at the center of a fight holding up President Trump’s push to formalize crypto’s role in the financial system.”
“Retail Investors Will Be Ripped Off In Private Markets With SEC Approval” (Better Markets). “Private credit firms have been angling to attract retail investors, because more money coming in is, of course, good for business. But retail investors don’t behave the same way institutional players do, and when the panic begins in private markets, there are no guardrails to protect individuals the way there are in banking.”
