Trump Administration Airs Video At Airports Blaming Democrats For Government Shutdown

A Microsoft engineer is resigning after 13 years at the software giant, claiming the company continues to sell cloud services to the Israeli military and that executives won't discuss the war in Gaza.Scott Sutfin-Glowski, a principal software engineer, informed colleagues at Microsoft on Thursday that this will be his last week at the company."I can no longer accept enabling what may be the worst atrocities of our time," he wrote.In the letter, he referred to a February Associated Press article that said the Israeli military had at least 635 Microsoft subscriptions, and he claimed the vast majority of them remain active.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Sutfin-Glowski's announced departure comes a day after President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas committed to the first phase of a peace plan two years into the latest conflict. The AP reported on Thursday, citing government officials, that the U.S. is sending roughly 200 troops to Israel to help support the ceasefire deal.The conflict has been a matter of ongoing tension at Microsoft.For months, employees have protested the company's cloud business from the Israeli military. Five employees were fired.

In September, Microsoft said it had stopped providing certain services to a division of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, though it didn't provide specifics. That decision came after Microsoft investigated an August report from The Guardian saying the Israeli Defense Forces' Unit 8200 had built a system for tracking Palestinians' phone calls.Sutfin-Glowski said the company cut off communication systems that allowed employees to bring up their concerns regarding the Israeli military's use of Microsoft products.

Outside a building at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Thursday, employees and community members opened up banners calling on the company to drop ties with Israel, according to a statement from No Azure for Apartheid. The group has been asking Microsoft to listen to the more than 1,500 employees who petitioned the company to endorse a ceasefire."Today, the ceasefire in Gaza finally takes effect after two years of genocide, but the atrocities, human rights abuses, war crimes, apartheid, and occupation continue," Sutfin-Glowski wrote.

Source: CNBC

This year, financial markets have displayed somewhat paradoxical behavior. On one hand, there’s endemic investor anxiety. Uncertainty is widespread, high inflation persists, and policy-related questions are many. On the other hand, the US equity market has climbed this year, despite pockets of significant volatility.

Understanding uncertainty

Although US equity markets have been performing well, we believe investors would be remiss not to take a closer look at many of the reasons uncertainty lingers. Early in 2025, the S&P 500 Index, a proxy for the US equity market, saw a several-week decline, during which value fell as much as 20% at the lowest point. Complicating this dynamic was the April announcement of the most protectionist US trade policies in a century. Since then, those tariffs have been rolled back and renegotiated, and markets have recovered, for the time being, at least.

Tariffs are simply one of many policy-related uncertainties investors have to contend with today. Questions over spending cuts, US deficit expansion, and immigration policies, among others, have exacerbated many investors’ sense of unease. At the same time, other warning signs, such as weakening consumer data (e.g., credit card delinquencies), a cooling labor market, and decelerating earnings revisions, have been emerging.

Sticky inflation is also a prevailing market concern. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) and other central banks have indicated that they will have to contend with inflation despite growth risks. What’s more, geopolitical tensions around the world, including wars, elevated tensions in climate-sensitive equatorial regions, and ongoing great-power competition between the US and China, have helped fuel the engine of uncertainty. Should these dynamics persist or worsen, it’s possible risk assets could come under pressure once again (Figure 1).

Figure 1

The current state of the market prompts myriad broader, longer-term questions. For example: Will the trend of US exceptionalism continue? Will the US remain a growth leader among other major economies? Will the Fed and other central banks focus future policy actions primarily on growth (weakness) or inflation (stickiness)? Will investors begin to derisk in the face of uncertainty?

The answers to these questions are yet to be seen, but one thing is certain: Numerous structural forces, such as deglobalization, suggest that economic cycles will oscillate much more, experience higher highs and lower lows, and push markets to extremes in some cases.

What we’re hearing from investors

This year has reminded investors to revisit their capital market expectations and assess whether their current mix of asset allocations can conceivably achieve their objectives given still elevated valuations and the factors driving uncertainty we explored above. One main conclusion from this may be that many portfolios could benefit from alternative sources of return and diversification. Specifically, diversifying hedge fund strategies that aim to deliver a specific and unique outcome have been a major topic of interest in recent discussions.

Importantly, we see strong economic reasons why many investors are either adding or considering adding diversifying strategies, such as hedge funds, to their existing portfolios. Conditions for delivering consistent, uncorrelated, alpha-centric returns have markedly improved while beta-centric returns, especially when adjusted for risk, are in decline. Elevated dispersion and macroeconomic volatility have contributed to these dynamics.

Diversifying your diversifiers

When equity markets fell in 2022, many investors realized bonds aren’t always an effective recessionary hedge, especially in the face of rising and sticky inflation. Thus, finding strategies immune to duration risk that can still deliver the intended diversification benefits can be quite useful. Certain hedge fund strategies may fill this role and expand portfolio diversification effectively. This isn’t to say that bonds shouldn't feature in a portfolio. They should, but we believe that given the return potential, investors may do well to find complements to traditional fixed income.

Key to this is identifying what matters most across these two dimensions — offsetting potentially lower returns or adding protection at the (marginal) expense of some return? Regardless of where investors fall on the return/diversification continuum, we believe diversified, uncorrelated strategies, including multi-strategy and global macro, may be well-positioned to provide tangible benefits and should, in many cases, be a mainstay in investor portfolios, especially in this highly uncertain and turbulent environment.

Source: Wellington Management

Bitcoin advocate Roger Ver, known to many in the crypto industry as “Bitcoin Jesus,” has reportedly reached a deal with the US Department of Justice that could allow him to avoid prison time.

According to a Thursday New York Times report, Ver’s lawyers reached a tentative agreement with US authorities that would require the Bitcoin advocate to pay $48 million in taxes he owed from his crypto holdings.The Justice Department charged Ver with mail fraud and tax evasion in April 2024, seeking to extradite him from Spain to stand trial.The New York Times reported that Ver has ties with figures connected to the administration of US President Donald Trump, including hiring lawyers who previously worked for the president. He also reportedly paid $600,000 to political consultant Roger Stone, a Trump adviser, to lobby for changes to US tax laws.

The reported deal followed a series of regulatory and legal actions under the Trump administration softening on legal cases involving digital assets. At the time of publication, the tentative agreement did not appear on the public docket for Ver’s case in the US District Court for the Central District of California.The initial indictment alleges that Ver falsely reported on tax forms related to his crypto holdings. He and two of his companies, MemoryDealers and Agilestar, allegedly held about 131,000 BTC in 2014. The DOJ said he attempted to evade paying taxes on his assets by renouncing his US citizenship and later becoming a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis.

“Even though Ver was not then a US citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions,” said the Justice Department in April 2024.Spanish authorities arrested Ver after his US indictment in 2024, but he posted bail in a matter of days. Since that time, Ver’s lawyers have been challenging Spanish authorities attempting to extradite him to the US and fighting the charges in federal court.

Seeking a presidential pardon

After Trump won reelection in 2024, many crypto users speculated that the president might issue a pardon for Ver.Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet marketplace Silk Road and one of the first individuals to receive a pardon from Trump, called for leniency in Ver’s case.“No one should spend the rest of their life in prison over taxes,” said Ulbricht in February.

“Let him pay the tax (if any) and be done with it.”

As of Thursday, Ver’s X profile linked users to a petition for Trump to pardon him. His website also had an open letter asking the US government to end the prosecution, claiming it was a “retaliatory action” for his advocacy of Bitcoin.

Source: Zero Hedge

Oil held the biggest decline in a week on cautious optimism about easing tensions in the Middle East and the outlook for supply.

West Texas Intermediate traded below $62 a barrel after closing 1.7% lower on Thursday. Brent settled near $65. A peace agreement between Israel and Hamas took another major step forward following Israel’s approval of a framework that would see hostages and prisoners released.

OPEC+ agreed to raise production quotas again at a gathering on Sunday, exacerbating concerns of an oversupplied market in the coming months. Still, the 137,000-a-day output boost for November was less than some of the figures reported in the lead up to the group’s meeting.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

Source: Bloomberg Europe

Source: Bloomberg Europe