Founder, Market Thinker

Mark Tinker

Founder

Market Thinker

Mark Tinker has over 35 years experience as an investor, market strategist and economist. Having spent more than 20 years as a sell side strategist and being top rated on numerous occasions and surveys he moved to investment management in 2006 to run global equity portfolios in London and subsequently moved to Hong Kong in 2013 to help establish an Investment Management business for a top 20 international asset manager. He first started writing investment weeklies for his employers in 1989, developing a style characterised under the title Market Thinking and has been a regular commentator and presenter on CNBC, Bloomberg and other business channels, where his approach of rationalising market behaviour rather than making short term predictions on high frequency market data provides a welcome balance to his client audience.

Making Sense of the Narrative

Macroeconomics

<ul><li>It had looked like the big story for June was going to be how Build Back Better, the Globalist Mantra used to cover for a huge increase in spending on the Green Industrial Complex, was being attacked by the proposed spending constraints under a different BBB, the Big Beautiful Bill that is now in the process of going through the Senate.</li><li>Until that is we got a third BBB, the Bunker Busting Bomb as the US bombed Iran.</li><li>As we discussed in the Ratchet and the Sausage Machine, the fall out over the BB Bill between Trump and Musk was less one of direction and more one of ideological purity; Musk despises the pork barrel nature of US political horse trading while Trump 2.0 recognises what is needed to get things done - in this case fulfil his pre election promises and prevent his previous tax cuts from being reversed.</li></ul>

It had looked like the big story for June was going to be how Build Back Better, the Globalist Mantra used to cover for a huge increase in spending on the Green Industrial Complex, was being attacked by the proposed spending constraints under a different BBB, the Big Beautiful Bill that is now in the process of going through the Senate.Until that is we got a third BBB, the Bunker Busting Bomb as the US bombed Iran.As we discussed in the Ratchet and the Sausage Machine, the fall out over the BB Bill between Trump and Musk was less one of direction and more one of ideological purity; Musk despises the pork barrel nature of US political horse trading while Trump 2.0 recognises what is needed to get things done - in this case fulfil his pre election promises and prevent his previous tax cuts from being reversed.

From Big Beautiful Bill to Bunker Busting Bombs

<ul><li>We often compare investing to sailing; investors can sit in safe harbour (cash) or they can venture out in most, if not all, weather.</li><li>Sometimes it requires a lot of tacking and trimming sails to seemingly achieve very little as the winds and tides fight each other, sometimes it is, as they say, plain sailing and the best thing to do is stick on the same course.</li><li><p><em>Obviously, and to extend the metaphor, fishing boats need to sail to where the most fish are and sometimes that means going to places where the weather is less predictable. </em></p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://marketthinker.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div><div></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"></form></div></div></li></ul>

We often compare investing to sailing; investors can sit in safe harbour (cash) or they can venture out in most, if not all, weather.Sometimes it requires a lot of tacking and trimming sails to seemingly achieve very little as the winds and tides fight each other, sometimes it is, as they say, plain sailing and the best thing to do is stick on the same course.Obviously, and to extend the metaphor, fishing boats need to sail to where the most fish are and sometimes that means going to places where the weather is less predictable. 

<ul><li><p>Total Imports to the US from Canada were around $420bn in 2024, so as a rough approximation the 25% tariff will generate around $90bn of revenue for the External Revenue Service, which importantly goes straight to the Treasury. (Energy is only tariffed at 10%).</p></li><li><p>Within that $420bn, raw materials such as Oil and Gas, Iron and Steel, Wood and Aluminium account for around 40% of the total.</p></li><li><p>This is the basis of the ‘you need us more than we need you’ argument all over social media as well as the ‘tariffs will cause inflation and destroy the economy’ arguments being advanced as much for political as economic reasons. </p></li></ul>

Total Imports to the US from Canada were around $420bn in 2024, so as a rough approximation the 25% tariff will generate around $90bn of revenue for the External Revenue Service, which importantly goes straight to the Treasury. (Energy is only tariffed at 10%).Within that $420bn, raw materials such as Oil and Gas, Iron and Steel, Wood and Aluminium account for around 40% of the total.This is the basis of the ‘you need us more than we need you’ argument all over social media as well as the ‘tariffs will cause inflation and destroy the economy’ arguments being advanced as much for political as economic reasons. 

The real import the US needs from Canada is its healthcare system

<ul><li>The first thing that investors need to recognise in Team Trump is that, like the markets, they don’t really care what we think.</li><li>They do not respond to worthy editorials in the Economist or the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal.</li><li>They don’t care what ‘experts’ think on trade or tariffs or fiscal policy, they tell us what they are going to do, rather than ask for our opinion.</li></ul>

The first thing that investors need to recognise in Team Trump is that, like the markets, they don’t really care what we think.They do not respond to worthy editorials in the Economist or the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal.They don’t care what ‘experts’ think on trade or tariffs or fiscal policy, they tell us what they are going to do, rather than ask for our opinion.

<ul><li>The famous Gilray cartoon of Pitt and Napoleon carving up the world has ironic resonance as Russia and the US meet up in Saudi Arabia this week with UK, Europe and Ukraine are not even invited.</li><li>To be fair, this is more about re-establishing US/Russia relations before any progress can be made on Ukraine, but the, now perpetually outraged, EU politicians, still smarting from their telling off by JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week, should perhaps be reflecting on the notion that the US may be taking a more Palmerston-like view to alliances…</li><li>Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England.</li></ul>

The famous Gilray cartoon of Pitt and Napoleon carving up the world has ironic resonance as Russia and the US meet up in Saudi Arabia this week with UK, Europe and Ukraine are not even invited.To be fair, this is more about re-establishing US/Russia relations before any progress can be made on Ukraine, but the, now perpetually outraged, EU politicians, still smarting from their telling off by JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week, should perhaps be reflecting on the notion that the US may be taking a more Palmerston-like view to alliances…Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England.

Mark Tinker
Founder
• Market Thinker

From Big Beautiful Bill to Bunker Busting Bombs

As we discussed in the Ratchet and the Sausage Machine, the fall out over the BB Bill between Trump and Musk was less one of direction and more one...

Mark Tinker

Rough Waters subsiding

We often compare investing to sailing; investors can sit in safe harbour (cash) or they can venture out in most, if not all, weather.

Mark Tinker

The real import the US needs from Canada is its healthcare system

Total Imports to the US from Canada were around $420bn in 2024, so as a rough approximation the 25% tariff will generate around $90bn of revenue...

Mark Tinker

Welcome to MAGA-Vision

The first thing that investors need to recognise in Team Trump is that, like the markets, they don’t really care what we think.

Mark Tinker

Eternal and Perpetual

The famous Gilray cartoon of Pitt and Napoleon carving up the world has ironic resonance as Russia and the US meet up in Saudi Arabia this week...

Mark Tinker