The breadth and scope of deal will be most interesting/BoE cuts as expected/Other good stuff

The announced US/UK trade deal today will be a good test case for all the other deals in terms of the scope and breadth of it. Are there going to be widespread declines in trade barriers and tariffs, the hoped for goal? Will this be a narrow deal instead with a few things here and there? Will the 10% baseline tariff on the UK, along with everyone else, still remain?

The Bank of England cut rates by 25 bps as expected to 4.25% in a 5-4 vote where two wanted a cut of 50 bps and two preferred no change. Their committee continues to be an interesting mix of opinions/dissents unlike the Fed which tends to coalesce around a consensus most of the time. They said "There has been substantial progress on disinflation over the past two years, as previous external shocks have receded, and as the restrictive stance of monetary policy has curbed second-round effects and stabilized longer-term inflation expectations...Progress on disinflation in domestic price and wage pressures is generally continuing."

What happens next? They set out two possible scenarios where in light of the global trade situation it could lead to either higher prices due to the weaker supply of things or on the other hand, demand falters more than supply does and prices fall. Thus, "Monetary policy is not on a pre-set path."

In response to the non-committal on what happens next, the pound went from red to green vs the US dollar, gilt yields went from slightly down to now up while the FTSE 100 is off its highs.

With respect to rate cut odds post the FOMC statement and Powell presser which went as a neutral stance as I suspected it would go, there is still almost a 100% chance of 3 rate cuts priced in this year.

The Swedish Riksbank and the Norges Bank each kept their policy rates unchanged as expected.

Something I expressed in early February after the DeepSeek news, I'll argue again on the heels of the Google story yesterday that the S&P 500 has lost the Big 7 stocks as the leadership group and it could be lost forever after an historic, incredible run. More challenging fundamentals and heady valuations/market caps that pulled forward a lot of future returns along with a world that overloaded on them are the main reasons. Whose hands the baton will eventually end up in remains to be seen but there is finally an opportunity to find other things to buy that could work as opposed to just anything related to AI. International markets have plenty of opportunities in addition to value stocks with good, boring businesses in the US.