US & China to Make Peace... While Competing for Literally Everything Else

Happy Monday! Welcome to a brand new week in the market and in geopolitics.

Hold on to your housing market projections—people might start buying homes with Fartcoin as collateral. Meanwhile, the US and China are basically, virtually, practically already in a trade agreement—or at least, there’s a framework set, according to Trump.

More on that (with memes) below.

This week:

via Yahoo Finance

President Trump said the US and China have confirmed a framework trade agreement, cementing the good vibes that both countries felt in Geneva this May. Good vibes beget good vibes—markets have responded kindly, with the S&P and Nasdaq hitting new records last week. Maybe these days are over:

This major step forward includes China agreeing to deliver rare earths to the US while the US removes countermeasures. Treasury Secretary Scott “The Deal Maker” Bessent expressed optimism that most important trade deals could be done by Labor Day—but Trump made it clear he is dead set on the original deadline of June 9.

Now, I know you might not be interested in the doom-and-gloom rhetoric of China vs. the US in AI, economy, military, and everything else. Honestly, I don’t like to dwell on it much either. But I’ve seen some interesting energy comparisons recently between the two nations that provided some food for thought:

China is producing far more electricity than the US. More than double! Per capita though, the US is ahead by a good bit. But in terms of energy to GDP, China is winning again.

The difference in energy production here is interesting for AI development and production alone, let alone for overall economical applications. The US and China are in an “infinite race” for AI supremacy, as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang put it—and energy production plays a serious role in that fight.

The story is similar with solar energy:

China is crushing in Solar as well. It’s interesting to think about this in light of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”—which aims to get rid of clean energy tax cuts and to even add new taxes on solar and wind energy. We don’t have a grand insight here other than to wonder whether China has figured something out that the US hasn’t, or if there’s more to this apparent discrepancy than it appears.

In fact, China just broke more solar and wind records 5 days ago, generating as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey—just with the new additions alone.

via The Average Joe​

Coinbase (COIN) surged to all-time highs Thursday after the Trump administration ordered cryptocurrencies to be counted as mortgage assets. In funnier news, mortgage providers have been ordered to allow the use of Fartcoin in credit assessments, according to Polymarket. Is there any turning back from this point?

This policy change specifically names US-regulated exchanges like Coinbase, potentially creating a massive new revenue stream as homebuyers tap crypto investments (and YOLO memecoin holdings) for home loans. With these policy changes and the GENIUS Act establishing federal stablecoin frameworks, things are looking up for crypto—I just can’t wait to hear the first time a 20 something calls in and asks Dave Ramsey if he should sell $2 million of Fartcoin to buy a home.

via NY Post

The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, the core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, rose to above the expected 2.7% last month—but even more shockingly, Jerome Powell has been accused of lying under oath in a congressional hearing.

He denied that there were luxury additions in the Fed’s new $2 billion HQ revamp—when the documentation clearly states that there are. The accusation is that he lied under oath, which is a pretty big deal. Meanwhile, Trump is still on his crusade against Powell for not lowering interest rates, and people are starting to wonder if the President will set up a shadow Fed Chair by announcing Powell’s successor before he retires. The short of it all? Things don’t look good for Powell or the fed on multiple fronts.

via Reuters

The Trump administration is preparing executive actions to boost energy supply for America's rapidly expanding artificial intelligence sector. Great news for Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, NVIDIA, and all the other US AI companies—likely bad news for the US’s competitors (and anyone concerned about the speed of AI development in general).

The package includes measures to streamline grid connections for power projects and offer federal land for data center development, addressing critical infrastructure bottlenecks as the US keeps racing against China for AI dominance. If I make a ChatGPT wrapper that’s trained on Dad jokes from each decade, can I get in on this AI package too? I probably need to unwrap the package first, I guess…

Elected officials have had a tremendous amount of success in the market recently.

I want to keep you updated on what they’re trading and when—so you can leverage that intel as you plan out your own portfolio.

Analysis provided by ​quiverquant.com.

Remember to always DYOR.

Disclosures