New French Cabinet: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Andrew Sheves Good morning. Greetings from Aberdeen, Scotland, where we’re enjoying a whopping 6 ½ hours of daylight today….

Two headlines from Europe are worth tracking as a taster of what things will look like in 2025.

In France, Prime Minister François Bayrou selected Eric Lombard as finance minister, tasked with finding a budget to satisfy all parties in a divided French parliament. Budget concerns were the stated reason for France’s opposition parties bringing down the previous government, so finding an acceptable solution is key for France’s stability, but the view is that Bayrou / Lombard will not significantly differ from the previous government. [SOURCE - Financial Times]

Note - the French opposition, particularly Marine le Pen, is keen to oust President Macron irrespective of whatever budget is proposed, indicating that France still faces a turbulent 2025.

via Bloomberg

Despite significant confusion over the attacker’s motivation for last week’s Christmas market attack in Margedurg, Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and other nationalist groups are stoking and capitalizing on the resultant anti-immigration sentiment. [SOURCE - BBC]

The AfD will enter 2025 in a strong position in the upcoming Federal elections in Germany despite the concerns over their hard-right policies. These and other far-right parties in Europe are also seeing significant support from Elon Musk, which might benefit them financially and through his support on X. [See NBC for more.]

On to the numbers.

Key Metrics

WTI is $71.03 (Down)

Low |—- < —————| High

Wheat is $185.735 (Down)

Low |—— < ————-| High

EuroDollar is $1.04 (Down)

Low | < ——————-| High

YuanDollar is $0.14 (Unchanged)

Low |———-<>———| High

Graphs are illustrative to show comparative price over last 180 days

Metrics via AlphaVantage updated Dec 24 2024 08:18 UTC

Americas Stability Ratings and News Summary

More Unstable

🇦🇷 Argentina, 🇧🇿 Belize, 🇧🇷 Brazil, 🇨🇦 Canada, 🇨🇴 Colombia, 🇨🇺 Cuba, 🇩🇲 Dominica, 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic, 🇪🇨 Ecuador, 🇸🇻 El Salvador, 🇬🇩 Grenada, 🇬🇹 Guatemala, 🇬🇾 Guyana, 🇭🇹 Haiti, 🇭🇳 Honduras, 🇯🇲 Jamaica, 🇲🇽 Mexico, 🇳🇮 Nicaragua, 🇵🇦 Panama, 🇵🇾 Paraguay, 🇵🇪 Peru, 🇱🇨 Saint Lucia, 🇸🇷 Suriname, 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago, 🇺🇸 United States Of America, 🇻🇪 Venezuela

More Stable

No countries were more stable over this period

Unchanged

🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda, 🇧🇧 Barbados, 🇧🇴 Bolivia, 🇨🇱 Chile, 🇨🇷 Costa Rica, 🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis, 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 🇧🇸 The Bahamas, 🇺🇾 Uruguay

Regional News Summary

Brazil’s economic landscape is increasingl


Carpe tomorrow!