Markets Happy Hour Live from New York City - January 16, 2026 - Blocking and Tackling

We started the year with some chilly weather, some American football inspired blocking and tackling and a tech challenged yet warmly engaging live podcast in New York. The video and slides will follow next week, but for now please enjoy the audio. In front of a live audience we discussed the inflation picture, the delayed transmission effect of tariffs and the ongoing disconnect with consumer's price experience on the ground. We examined the market reaction to the announcement last week of a criminal investigation into former Chairman Powell. The decisive push back, via video recorded by Chairman Powell, seems to have been viewed as a form of checks and balances working as they should, and, as ever in recent years, bond markets have reacted calmly, being decidedly unbothered. Equity markets have been somewhat lack luster this week, coming off the prevailing uncertainty in geopolitics and domestic checks and balances, but the US market still stands alone in having experienced few "flight" events in recent years - a flight event being defined here as a simultaneous fall in equities, bonds and currency. This underscores the sense of "might is right" that dominates not just in equity markets but also - now - in geopolitics. We discuss some of the tangential effects of the recent rhetoric around Venezuela and the importance of military power. We examine whether this is galvanizing efforts in Europe to join forces, as well as within other trading partners - namely China, which is seeing its largest ever trade surplus.