- Compound Interests
- Posts
- $36 billion of gold gone
$36 billion of gold gone
Where did it go and why? It's all down to two words: "tariff panic".
This week is all about commercialism love. Valentine’s Day is on Friday (LADS, PAY ATTENTION) so there’s still time to plan something special. The stats on Valentine’s Day are wild:
8 billion candy hearts made every year
Americans spend about $26 billion on Valentine’s gifts
In Wales, Valentine’s Day is celebrated on January 25th with the giving of love spoons
So to all the fellas out there - planning even a small thing goes a long way. And to the people of Wales, you guys are crazy.
KEY LINKS FROM TODAY:
Markets
PAST WEEK | YEAR-SO-FAR | |
|---|---|---|
Nasdaq | +1.4% | +1.3% |
S&P500 | +1.2% | +2.7% |
MSCI Emerging Markets | +2.5% | +3.5% |
Bitcoin* | -1.6% | +3.1% |
Ethereum* | -10.5% | -20.9% |
Stock of the week: | +65.2% | +34.0% |
Crypto of the week: | +15.6% | +52.4% |
*Source: CoinGecko.com As of 4:14PM February 9, 2025
World news
Top news stories of the past week
1) $36 billion of gold gone: The Bank of England has been drained of $36 billion in gold deposits as traders rush to ship the SHINY METAL to the U.S., where prices are surging due to President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. This might sound like the setup for Goldmember’s latest heist (and that may yet come true), but it’s also a sign of how panicked people are - they want the safety gold offers!
2) Musk being agreeable (jk): Elon Musk, now leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration, is applying his aggressive restructuring strategies from his Twitter acquisition to federal agencies. His drastic workforce cuts and operational overhauls have sparked fears of chaos and inefficiency in critical government functions. The best spending DOGE found so far? That would be the $3 million shrimp treadmill study.
3) China on tariff train: After getting slapped with a 10% tariff from Trump, China said “great idea” and did the same thing to the US. The reality is that the US imports about twice as much from China as China does from the US, so the US is going to feel the pain from their tariffs far more in the short term. The big story is that China also imposed export controls on 25 rare metals, some of which are key for making electric cars and military equipment - that will hurt big-time.
Top WEIRD stories of the past week
1) A colony of beavers in the Czech Republic saved the government nearly $1.2 million by finishing a dam that had been stalled for seven years due to bureaucratic delays. Strength and honor.
2) Palmerston, the former chief mouser at the UK Foreign Office, has come out of retirement to serve as a "feline relations consultant" in Bermuda. Did the cat get a say in this?
3) Thieves in Pennsylvania stole 100,000 eggs from a poultry farm amid rising egg prices. Great. Now what? NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE EGGS?
Personal finance
Ultimate Financial Checklist
Are you in your 30s and wondering if you're on track financially?
Most people think they’re doing fine—but small gaps today can become huge regrets later.
That’s why we put together The Ultimate Financial Checklist for Your 30s—a simple, step-by-step guide to help you:
✅ Optimize your spending
✅ Build your emergency fund
✅ Crush high-interest debt
✅ Max out employer benefits
✅ Start investing with confidence
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Technology
On the edge - Humanoid Robots
Humanoid robots are machines that look and move like humans; think Terminator, but nice (hopefully) They have a head, arms, legs, and can walk on two feet. Big companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Figure AI are making these robots.
But why do we need them at all? These robots are important because they can work in places made for humans, like factories, hospitals, and homes. They can do jobs that are dangerous or boring for people. And they are coming for those jobs.
So what? These jobs will be automated away to robots in the coming years, but that will inevitably create other jobs. The car industry killed the carriage industry, but created the mechanic shop.
Chart
You like charts? Graphs? Ya you do
Why are tariffs such a hot-button issue? Because the US imports WAY more than it exports, and this has only been accelerating.
Investment idea
What are we investing in?
Biotech breakthroughs
Biotechnology uses living organisms and biological systems to create solutions that improve human health, agriculture, and the environment. Examples include gene-editing tools like CRISPR and mRNA vaccines (a revolution because of the speed with which they can be developed).
Right now is an exciting time to invest in biotech because advancements in AI and quantum computing are starting to massively accelerate drug discovery and targeting diseases once considered "undruggable," such as certain cancers.
The commercial impacts of quantum computing, which enables massively complex calculations to be run extremely quickly, are yet to come. However, recent advancements like Google’s Willow signal that development is speeding up.
These technologies are making the research process faster, cheaper, and more precise, opening up new opportunities for breakthroughs.
So how can you invest in this technology wave? Trying to buy individual stocks here is especially risky, so diversified biotech ETFs are the play:
History
On this day…
…in 1996, Garry Kasparov, the World Chess Champion, played and lost to IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue. Robots everywhere rejoiced.
Was the robot talking smack?
Music
Banger of the week
Most important thing
Meme? Nah. Art.
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