This week is everything’s fine… but also please don’t touch anything.

Trump’s tariffs haven’t delivered a boom or a bust, more like a slow drip of price pressure and corporate indecision.

Meanwhile, the Fed cut again, but the committee looked like a group chat arguing in real time.

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The Big Picture

Travel

America’s Travel Economy Hits a Social Media Speed Bump

A new proposal would ask visitors from visa-free countries to share their social media history from the past five years before traveling to the United States.

This information would become part of the standard pre-travel authorization process that millions of visitors already complete.

For travelers used to quick approvals, this adds a new layer of personal disclosure. Even before any rules are finalized, the idea alone is enough to make some visitors hesitate.

Why Travel Dollars Care About Friction

International travelers are not just tourists.

They come to attend conferences, sign deals, shop, eat out, and pump money into local economies from New York to Las Vegas to Orlando.

When entry rules feel heavier or unclear, people start weighing alternatives.

A trip delayed or skipped does not just hurt airlines; it hits hotels, retailers, restaurants, and business events across the country.

Confidence Moves Faster Than Planes

Travel works best when the process feels predictable and respectful.

When visitors are unsure what information is required or how it will be used, confidence drops and bookings often follow.

The U.S. economy benefits when the door feels open and organized.

The challenge now is tightening security without making travel feel complicated enough that global visitors quietly take their spending elsewhere.

Critical Minerals

From Chips to Defense, the U.S. Wants Its Minerals Close

The U.S. is backing a massive new metals plant on American soil, and the size of the check says this is not just another industrial project.

A $7.4 billion smelter backed by government support and private capital is set to turn raw materials into the building blocks of modern tech, defense systems, and advanced manufacturing.

This is about control as much as capacity. When key inputs live inside the country, supply chains feel sturdier and less vulnerable to global shocks.

Why Metals Suddenly Matter Again

Zinc, copper, and specialty minerals are no longer boring commodities.

They sit at the center of chips, satellites, grids, and weapons, which means shortages ripple fast through the economy.

With China restricting exports of several strategic materials, the U.S. has shifted from shopping globally to building locally.

Processing power now matters just as much as mining, and smelters have become strategic assets instead of background infrastructure.

A New Kind of Industrial Push

This move fits a broader pattern where Washington is quietly rebuilding the industrial middle of the economy.

Even as electric vehicle demand cools, priorities around defense, data centers, and energy grids keep rising.

The message is simple. The U.S. wants fewer choke points, fewer surprises, and more control over what powers its economy.

Big plants like this are less about today’s cycle and more about locking in resilience for the next decade.

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Power

When Abundance Becomes a Pricing Problem

Natural gas prices have slid toward multi-week lows, and the reason is simple: winter demand has been a no-show.

Production is running at record levels, storage is already full, and mild weather has taken the urgency out of heating needs.

The result is a market with more supply than appetite. When gas keeps flowing, but furnaces stay quiet, prices tend to sag, no drama required.

Pipes Matter More Than Molecules

Not all gas prices are falling evenly. Some regions are awash in supply but boxed in by pipeline limits, pushing local prices down hard and sometimes below zero.

Other parts of the country are telling a different story, where demand and infrastructure still keep prices elevated.

This split matters because natural gas powers a huge share of U.S. electricity. When prices swing by region, power costs, energy planning, and investment decisions swing with them.

Abundance Meets a Crowded World

The U.S. is producing more gas than ever and shipping more overseas, but global markets are not exactly hungry either.

Europe and Asia are seeing softer prices, which limits how much relief exports can provide back home.

This is the new energy puzzle. America has plenty of fuel, but plenty does not always mean profitable.

For businesses, utilities, and policymakers, cheap gas is a blessing and a challenge, reshaping decisions from power grids to long-term energy strategy.

Metrics to Watch

• Jobless Claims + Continuing Claims
  Claims jumping back toward the mid-200Ks doesn’t scream panic, but it does matter because it’s one of the cleanest are layoffs spreading signals we get in real time.
  
  The trend matters more than one print, two or three hotter weeks and markets will start pricing more Fed help.
  
  

• The “Are We Overstating Jobs?” Gap
  If Powell’s right and payrolls are overstated by something like 60K a month, the difference between still adding jobs and quietly losing jobs gets uncomfortably small.
  
  Watch for big backward revisions and anything that suggests the labor market is softer than headlines implied.
  
  

• Inflation that Won’t Die, but also Won’t Sprint
  The scary tariffs = instant inflation inferno call hasn’t happened… but inflation sticking around ~3% keeps the Fed from cutting freely.
  
  Watch whether goods prices start creeping higher again as inventories roll over and new import contracts reset.
  
  

• Tariff Pass-Through in the Real World
  This isn’t a single data point, it’s a scoreboard. Listen for we’re taking price, we’re eating it, or we’re shifting suppliers.
  
  If more companies admit they’ve been holding back increases and are now pushing them through, margins and consumer demand both get tested.
  
  

• Manufacturing Temperature
  Factory activity sitting below the expansion line for months is a big tell that uncertainty is doing damage.
  
  Watch new orders and supplier commentary,if companies keep saying we can’t plan, investment slows even if the consumer is still breathing.

Market Movers

🧊 Fed Cut, But With a “Don’t Get Cute” Warning
Yes, they cut. No, they didn’t promise a cutting party in 2026. The mixed messaging (and the 9–3 split) sets up bigger market moves on small data surprises.

🧾 Tariffs: More Margin Tax Than Doomsday Button
The economy didn’t crater and it didn’t supercharge either. The real story is uneven price creep, hesitant capex, and CEOs basically saying we’ll decide after the next policy U-turn.

🧮 Jobs Data: Now Featuring a “May Contain Errors” Label
Powell hinting payrolls could be overstated turns every labor headline into a trust exercise.

Expect extra volatility around jobs-ish prints because traders won’t know what’s signal vs. statistical cosplay.

🏛️ Fed Chair Drama = Policy Headline Risk
When the market starts gaming out who’s next (and what they’ll do), you get more narrative trading and fewer calm, data-driven weeks.

That’s usually when defensives and quality quietly look smarter than the loud stuff.

Market Impacts

Equities: Futures are basically flat-to-soft after a week where tech finally took a breather and the AI forever trade got a little mortal.

Oracle and Broadcom were the punching bags, while the Dow held up better thanks to less tech exposure.

Play it like this: keep exposure to profitable, cash-generating leaders, but don’t be surprised if money keeps rotating into the impressive 493 (industrials, financials, boring value, and steady defensives).

If you’re overloaded in AI hype names, this is your gentle nudge to rebalance.

Bonds: The 10-year popped back up after Austan Goolsbee basically waved a yellow flag on cutting too fast and assuming inflation magically behaves.

That keeps yields choppy and makes rate-cut certainty a risky bet.

If you want income without the emotional damage, that 2–5 year zone still feels like the comfy chair.

Keep some longer duration only if you’re using it as a hedge for a growth scare.

Currencies: The dollar bounced Friday after a recent slide, but it’s still been leaking air for weeks and is weaker so far this month.

Sterling dipped after soft U.K. GDP data, with traders leaning toward a Bank of England cut.

That means FX is headline-driven right now. If U.S. data comes in softer, the dollar can sag again, good for multinationals and metals, annoying for overseas vacations.

Commodities: Oil drifted lower and logged a weekly loss as too much supply, not enough demand keeps winning the argument, though Venezuela/Russia headlines can still spark quick pops.

In this tape, oil rallies may be more like speed bumps than a new highway.

Gold is creeping higher again as the market keeps one eye on policy uncertainty, while silver cooled after setting a fresh record (classic profit-taking after a victory lap).

Metals still look like the portfolio insurance aisle, just don’t go full doomsday prepper.

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Key Indicators to Watch

• U.S. Employment Report (Tue, 8:30 a.m. ET) - This is the big one, especially with the shutdown backlog and all the chatter about jobs data being messy.
  
  Stronger jobs can lift cyclicals but keep yields sticky; weaker jobs boosts more cuts hopes and can jolt defensives higher.
  
  

• Retail Sales (Tue, 8:30 a.m. ET) - A straight “are people still spending?” check. Hot spending helps consumer names and the broader growth vibe; a miss brings out staples, utilities, and the recession whisperers.
  
  

• S&P Flash PMIs – Services + Manufacturing (Tue, 9:45 a.m. ET) - A quick read on business momentum right now.
  
  If these roll over, markets start pricing slower growth; if they hold up, it supports the soft landing, just bumpy story.
  
  

• CPI + Core CPI (Thu, 8:30 a.m. ET) - The inflation mood-setter. Cooler inflation helps bonds and rate-cut odds; hotter inflation usually firms the dollar and puts pressure on long-duration tech.
  
  

• Initial Jobless Claims (Thu, 8:30 a.m. ET)
  The weekly layoff thermometer. Calm claims = cooling, not cracking. A jump changes the conversation fast and tends to favor bonds over riskier stocks.

Everything Else

• Grocery prices are still choosing violence, and the food inflation squeeze is turning treat yourself into maybe just rice again.

• The Fed’s next move might come down to one awkward question: are we counting jobs… correctly? The overcount debate is getting loud enough to move bonds.

• Inflation is behaving better, but it’s still not giving the Fed a full victory lap as this PCE print is more progress report than graduation.

• China’s factories and shoppers both eased up in November, and the soft patch is making global growth bulls do a quick posture check.

• The U.S. trade deficit just slimmed down to its smallest in over five years, with exports doing the heavy lifting, call it an economic glow-up.