emilyvuong

🔥Gold officially dethrones U.S. Treasuries, becoming the world’s largest reserve asset
According to the ECB’s June 2026 report, gold accounts for 27% of the total official global foreign-exchange reserves as of the end of 2025, surpassing the 22% share of U.S. Treasury bonds for the first time since 1990.
After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 (the U.S. stopped exchanging USD for gold), gold gradually lost its role as the main official monetary anchor.
At that time, European central banks (the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, the UK) began selling some of their gold

🔥Replace global taxes with forced labor taxes on 60 economies
🔴Starting July 24, the USTR imposes additional tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on 60 economies, on the very day the global 10% under Section 122 expires. The scope covers 99.4% of U.S. imports. Section 122 is Trump’s replacement measure after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA tariff in February.
🔴Four tariff-rate groups:
- Flat 10%: 17 economies, including the UK, India, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia
- MFN-offset 10%: the EU, Taiwan
- MFN-offset 12.5%: Japan, South Korea, Switzerland
- Flat 12.5%: the

🔥U.S. investors’ first time seeing margin debt exceed $1,000B versus cash holdings
Net credit balance of Americans fell further -$70M in June, down to -$1.06T for the first time ever in recorded history. Margin-debt investors owe more $1T than the amount of cash they are holding in their brokerage accounts.
The metric measures the gap between margin debt and free credit balance— the more negative it is, the higher the risk of a long squeeze when the market corrects
Since the 2022 bear market low, this metric has risen more than 4 times.
Meanwhile, margin debt increased another $895B over t

Markets price in an 82% chance that the Fed will raise interest rates at this year’s September FOMC. Higher for longer?

⚡️Tokenized equities: on-chain capital flows are accelerating
- The number of holders of tokenized stocks reached 671K, up +69.4% MoM
- Compared with December 2025 (122K), the figure has increased +449%
- The growth momentum has continued for 11 months without slowing down; each subsequent month is higher than the previous one
This kind of holder-count growth usually comes ahead of institutional capital flows—retail is entering first, waiting for the legal infrastructure to catch up.

🔥Midterm year in the presidential term — the stock market adjustment rate is 100% in the last 13 times
Since 1974, the US has had 13 midterm election cycles — all 13 times the S&P 500 saw a sharp pullback afterward (average -19%):
- 1974 Ford: -35%
- 1978 Carter: -15%
- 1982 Reagan: -17%
- 1986 Reagan: -10%
- 1990 George H.W. Bush: -20%
- 1994 Clinton: -8%
- 1998 Clinton: -22%
- 2002 George W. Bush: -34%
- 2006 George W. Bush: -8%
- 2010 Obama: -17%
- 2014 Obama: -10%
- 2018 Trump: -20%
- 2022 Biden: -27%
- 2026 Trump: ???
More evidence against the rise in US stocks’ price momentum:
- The new

🔥The current S&P 500 bull run is the strongest surge in history since 1928
The S&P 500 has risen +95% since the end of 2022, putting this current upcycle into the strongest bull markets in history.
For comparison, the top 25% of bull markets in history have gained only about +50% over the same time period, while the median bull market has reached just ~35% after 3.5 years. Specifically, from the April 2025 low, the S&P 500 has surged +51%.
This rally is driven by expectations that S&P 500 EPS will grow 23% in 2026, the strongest since 2021. But because it has run faster than 90% of historical

📍South Korea rewrites its national asset law after 76 years—crypto is recognized as an asset
The South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance has announced the National Asset Basic Act, replacing the 1950 National Asset Act. From here, crypto + intellectual property will officially be included in the state asset category valued at about ~$940B.
South Korea will also pilot tokenized government bonds in 2027, connecting with the BOK’s CBDC. The Digital Asset Basic Act in the second half of 2026 will start with won stablecoins + pave the way for spot BTC ETFs.
On the same day, Japan passes

🔥US consumer credit continues to fall: Have Americans run out of confidence to swipe their cards?
The Fed’s G.19 report for May has raised concerns in the market:
- Total consumer credit fell $182M times, the first decline since November 2024, while the market expected an increase of $17.5B
- Revolving credit (mainly credit cards) dropped sharply by $5.3B, fully reversing after 2 months of consecutive gains above $10B months
- Non-revolving credit (auto loans + student loans) only rose by $5.1B, the weakest since the beginning of the year
- The average credit card interest rate climbed to 2

🔥The U.S. economy is dependent on AI spending: More than $1 in every $4 of growth
Data has confirmed what has been suspected since the AI bubble began: AI investment has truly become the largest driver of growth in the U.S. economy.
- AI investment (software + IT equipment + R&D + data centers, per the Fed methodology) contributes more than 25% of nominal GDP growth—the highest in history (since 1947)
- The scale of AI spending reaches ~8% of GDP, exceeding the Dot-com bubble peak of ~6.5% in 2000
- Q1/2026: Business investment contributes 1.48 percentage points to growth, for the first time

📍Warsh testifies before Congress: "Inflation is a choice, and the Fed chose to end it"
🔴On 14–15/7, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held his first semiannual testimony before Congress since taking office. The message throughout was: The mission on inflation is not yet complete.
🔴Warsh vowed to end five years of high inflation, reiterated the 2% target, and affirmed that the FOMC is "unrelenting toward persistent inflation".
CPI released in time for the testimony: -0.4% M/M, Y/Y down to 3.5% from 4.2%, core 2.6%.
-> Warsh said: "Some people look at the data this morning and say the job is done. That i

🔥Strategy raises an additional $467M, third consecutive week without buying Bitcoin
An 8-K filing on 13/07 confirmed that Strategy continues to stay out of the BTC market, focusing all efforts on strengthening its cash reserve fund:
- Sold 4.8M MSTR shares via the ATM channel in the week of 06–12/07, netting $466.7M — all deployed into the USD Reserve, lifting the fund from $2.55B to $3B (+18% in just 1 week)
- Did not buy more BTC for the third consecutive week. The most recent purchase was on 22/06 with only 520 BTC (~$35M)
- The $3B fund is currently sufficient to cover 20.4 months of pre