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Market effect of trade wars? (Or wars period?)

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Davidt
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It’s quite a difficult title/question to answer as a trade war and an actual war are obviously two very, very different things.

With regards to a trade war, it will obviously increase prices for consumers regardless of what the tangerine dream says. Whether it’s increased employer NI contributions in the UK, or tariffs resulting from a trade war, businesses always pass a significant proportion of these onto the consumer. How that impacts collectables/watches could go either way; a rising tide could raise all ships and so collectible prices increase, or a cost of living crisis means that non essential items fall in value.

Obviously an actual war will have a significant negative effect on the vintage watch market but if we find ourselves in a hot conflict with a developed country that will be the least of our problems.


I agree with a lot of this unfortunately. Trumps arrogance, naivety and ability to green light and legitimise extreme jingoism and nationalism could be the spark this tinderbox doesn’t need.

pdxleaf pdxleaf
Very little about what is happening in the USA right now is logical, so trying to use logic to predict the future won't work.

Regarding a future war, shooting wars are often kicked off by a spark that is unforeseen. However, the environment for a war is often predictable and similar. Nationalist fervor, identification of a scapegoat, economic collapse, a generation of citizens who have not experienced war, self-serving leaders. Personally, I think the chances of a war involving multiple first world nations within the next four years is greater than 50%.
 
pdxleaf
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Dan S Dan S
And while you're stocking up, don't forget the whiskey, although bourbon is a viable alternative.
Coffee and maple syrup in our house.
 
Archer
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It will very likely mean no more US work for me.
 
sheepdoll
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It takes a long time to turn a ship like the titanic to avoid hitting the iceburg.

Ironically if they had not turned the ship and it hit the iceburg head on, Computer models suggest the ship would not have sunk. There would still have been death and injury, but the front was designed as an impact crumple zone.

Sometimes staying the course is the harder decision to see.
 
ErichPryde
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Uncertain environments don't necessarily lead to large-scale corrections, but uncertainty generally inhibits breakouts, and a serious strike of bad news (a black swan event) is a lot more likely to cause serious correction when the situation is already fearful and uncertain or in outright decline. This probably doesn't need to be said. The last trade war the US had with China was brief- back in June 2015, and the uncertainty caused price ($SPY) to locally top around 213. As more tariffs were announced, price deteriorated and had a rough ~15% correction,

Although today's environment is not identical to 2015, the market is showing some signs of uncertainty. It's not just the trade war stuff and the troop stuff, throw Deepseek in there and the impact it's had on tech. Obviously the news will write the reason after the correction starts...

It's interesting though, as a point of speculation.
 
ErichPryde
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sheepdoll sheepdoll
It takes a long time to turn a ship like the titanic to avoid hitting the iceburg.

Ironically if they had not turned the ship and it hit the iceburg head on, Computer models suggest the ship would not have sunk. There would still have been death and injury, but the front was designed as an impact crumple zone.

Sometimes staying the course is the harder decision to see.

The stock market is almost never able to turn in a rational fashion. Probably actually never. Markets can top in anticipation of bad news and at their lows they generally turn well before things are actually better. The market tends to hit the iceburgs in the worst ways, and despite that, rarely sinks as low as people think it should. People are interesting creatures.
 
Makesbelieve
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I find it interesting that not one person has mentioned the effect of AI on the world stage. To me, as someone who is working closely within this space, this technology and the unregulated way it's being rolled out will have far more impact on our future lives than the saber rattling currently going on around the world. The changes that AI/ML/AGI/GAI will bring, for better or worse, to every aspect of our daily lives will have far, far wider impacts for the human race than any form of geopolitics.
 
Dan S
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Makesbelieve Makesbelieve
I find it interesting that not one person has mentioned the effect of AI on the world stage. To me, as someone who is working closely within this space, this technology and the unregulated way it's being rolled out will have far more impact on our future lives than the saber rattling currently going on around the world. The changes that AI/ML/AGI/GAI will bring, for better or worse, to every aspect of our daily lives will have far, far wider impacts for the human race than any form of geopolitics.
Probably it's not being mentioned because it's old news, and because the effects of the AI build-out have not only already been baked into the market, but they've been baked into the market in a wildly exaggerated way (and then corrected somewhat). Yes, the market will move again when inference becomes more widely used, but those effects will be spread very broadly, IMO. If you'd like to have a speculative discussion about technologies/products that will be massively impacted by widespread AI inference, it could be a good topic for a different thread.

This thread is speculating about specific things that might happen and how they might impact the collectible market, not talking about things that happened already (from a market standpoint). It's the OP's prerogative to set the topic, and she asked about wars and trade wars.
Edited:
 
ErichPryde
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Makesbelieve Makesbelieve
I find it interesting that not one person has mentioned the effect of AI on the world stage. To me, as someone who is working closely within this space, this technology and the unregulated way it's being rolled out will have far more impact on our future lives than the saber rattling currently going on around the world. The changes that AI/ML/AGI/GAI will, bring for better or worse, to every aspect of our daily lives will have far, far wider impacts for the human race than any form of geopolitics.

I did briefly hit on it, in terms of how it has impacted the US tech sector. It's generated a ton of speculative investing for several years without doubt. the idea that something might generate fantastic returns in the future pretty much always generates fantastic returns "now" if it's widely held. Now that Deepseek has thrown something of a wrench in the concept that AI might be US dominated and generate lots of profits, there's a lot of correction, and uncertainty.

As someone who works closely in this space, how should we price it, how should we expect it to impact our lives? As far as I can tell no one really knows exactly how it will impact us. The last article I read on AI from Time magazine was interesting and covered how AI will "cheat." I don't know what to make of AI. Will it absolutely ruin the internet? How will it impact the future? It's a bit like the idea of the technological singularity- I think we all understand something will happen but understanding how that will impact the world is perhaps too complex to fully understand.
 
ErichPryde
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Dan S Dan S
Probably it's not being mentioned because it's old news, and because the effects of the AI build-out have not only already been baked into the market, but they've been baked into the market in a wildly exaggerated way (and then corrected somewhat).
Right, the market pre-prices. that's important to accept. Once true PE is known it's not worth speculating on, that's just a fact. so the question is whether or not new information can come out that AI has a new fancy trick that can fuel more speculation.
 
Makesbelieve
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Dan S Dan S
It's the OP's prerogative to set the topic, and she asked about wars and trade wars.

Ah, good point, I just re-read her initial post and you're right. My apologies.

Back to the topic at hand!
 
Faz
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Canuck Canuck
IMG_2947.webp

My being Canadian, I can see this discussion becoming political in a hurry! Canada is not for sale! Just how two Blackhawk helicopters deployed to protect the longest border in the world separating two countries is gonna help keep the U S military out of our country is going to work, I have no idea! But there are other ways of staying sovereign!
A-man to that!
 
Faz
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My view is that when there’s an attempt at sowing division and dissension through provocation, the byproduct is the creation of new coalitions. This community is no exception.
 
Porteroso
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Depending on what gets cut by the U.S. federal government, that will likely have a worse effect that any threat of tariffs. So far it's just saber rattling, negotiation. And the wars seem to be winding down. If the Russia Ukraine war ends, and Israel/Hamas end up with a real shot at a phase 2 of their ceasefire, it will likely counteract any potential trade war. Right now, the market very much wants to see the nvidia earnings, because of the deepseek scare. Even if it's good, a lot of traders will likely still be careful, because of talks of France/Germany going to war with Russia.
 
dsio
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I appreciate that people have kept this civil thus far but we’re just not really the place for politics as it ruins friendships and creates toxicity that then spreads into unrelated watch threads with people sniping at eachother so I think we’re going to lock it at this point.
 

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