U.S. "Stocks, Bonds, and Currency" Triple Sell-off! Danish Pension Fund "Clears US Holdings," Gold Soars

Written by: Ma Mengniu, Deep Tide TechFlow

An icy island in the Arctic Circle is shaking the foundations of the global financial markets.

On January 20, the US market experienced a brutal “triple kill” of stocks, bonds, and currencies, with the Dow plunging 1.76%, the S&P 500 dropping 2.06% and marking its largest single-day decline since October last year, and the Nasdaq Composite falling 2.39%. The 10-year US Treasury yield soared to 4.3%, and the US dollar index fell below 99.

European stock markets also collapsed simultaneously, with the UK, France, Germany, and Italy indices all dropping over 1%, and Bitcoin also fell below $90,000.

Meanwhile, safe-haven asset gold broke through $4,800, reaching a new all-time high.

Black swan events are frequent, with seemingly unbelievable triggers: Trump’s territorial ambitions over Greenland and the confrontation between the US and Europe.

Danish Pension Funds “Clear US Holdings”

Greenland, covering an area of 2.16 million square kilometers with a population of only 56,000, is an autonomous territory of Denmark and should have no direct connection to Wall Street.

But Trump publicly claimed that “Greenland is vital to US national security” and hinted on multiple occasions that “the US must own Greenland.” After Denmark and other European countries explicitly refused, Trump played his most familiar card: imposing tariffs on all European countries opposing US acquisition of Greenland.

The EU responded swiftly and strongly: considering retaliatory tariffs on US goods worth €93 billion and restricting US companies from entering the EU market.

The latest move directly targets the core of US dollar hegemony: US Treasuries.

Danish pension fund AkademikerPension(, managing $2.5 billion in assets and serving teachers and scholars), announced it will sell all its US Treasuries holdings by the end of January, approximately $100 million.

Chief Investment Officer Anders Schelde explained bluntly: “The overall creditworthiness of the US is poor; in the long run, the US government’s fiscal situation is unsustainable.”

He specifically pointed out that the key factor driving this decision was Trump’s threatening rhetoric about Greenland. Concerns over fiscal discipline and the dollar’s weakness also prompted the fund to reduce its US asset exposure.

This is not an isolated case. Two other Danish pension funds, managing about $120 billion—PFA and Laerernes Pension—have also significantly cut their US debt holdings this month.

Don’t underestimate these figures. Although Denmark’s total pension assets are not as large as the US giants, they represent a thorough European long-term capital skepticism of US credit.

Market reactions were immediate and fierce: the euro surged to 1.1768 against the dollar, the Swedish Krona and Danish Krone both jumped 1% against the dollar, and US Treasuries experienced a frantic sell-off, with 30-year yields breaking above 4.9% and 10-year yields reaching 4.3%, both hitting new highs since September last year.

Gold reaches new highs

In this financial storm, only one asset class is celebrating: precious metals like gold and silver.

Spot gold surged past $4,800 per ounce during trading, hitting a new record high in human history. Silver also broke through $94, with year-to-date gains exceeding 30%. Global capital is voting its distrust in the US dollar with real gold and silver.

In stark contrast, Bitcoin plummeted below $89,000, with a single-day drop approaching 3%. Mainstream cryptocurrencies like ETH and Solana suffered even worse declines, generally over 5-8%.

In the face of a genuine geopolitical crisis, institutional capital has chosen the hard currency that has been proven over thousands of years. The narrative of cryptocurrencies as “digital gold” temporarily failed under systemic risk testing.

See who is buying gold:

The Polish central bank just approved a plan to purchase 150 tons of gold, increasing its reserves from 550 tons to 700 tons, ranking it among the top ten global gold reserves.

Central Bank Governor Adam Glapinski was frank: “We need more hard assets to counteract uncertainty.”

Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio issued a sharper warning: Trump’s tariffs are triggering a “capital war,” with countries and investors reducing their investments in US assets. He recommends using gold as an important hedge because the current monetary system is collapsing, and central banks’ logic of holding fiat currency and debt has fundamentally changed.

This statement is worth repeated reflection. Dalio is not a doomsayer; he manages a macro hedge fund with over a hundred billion dollars. Every word he says reflects the genuine anxiety of big capital.

Goldman Sachs also unusually acknowledged that Trump’s tariff threats against Europe are “destructive” and will continue to suppress the dollar this week.

Chief FX Strategist Kamakshya Trivedi said bluntly: “We have encountered disruptive US policies for two consecutive weekends, which questions the aura surrounding US assets.”

What does “the aura is being questioned” mean? Simply put, the credibility of the dollar as the global reserve currency is disintegrating.

Over the past 70 years, US dollar hegemony was built on three pillars: strong military power, the defender of free trade, and rule-based predictability.

Trump’s ambitions over Greenland and tariff extortion are dismantling the last two pillars.

When the US itself begins threatening allies, tearing up rules, and weaponizing geopolitics, why should other countries still store their wealth in US assets?