Latest news with #LeBas
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Sell America' fears look more like ‘buy less' as Treasury auctions loom and a debt-limit battle brews
'Buy less' isn't only an American trend. Anxiety around a 'Sell America' trade, in which foreigners dump the dollar and U.S. government bonds, has been gripping investors ever since President Donald Trump's tariff event in the Rose Garden on April 2 shocked global markets. 'We are the most privileged': My husband and I are tired of paying for our friends. How do we get them to pay their way? Warren Buffett proves, once again, why he's the best My eldest son refused to share his father's $500K inheritance with his siblings. Should I cut him off? What 100 years of stock-market crashes tells us about the S&P 500's stunning tariff comeback 'Retirement is within my grasp': I'm 57, my 401(k) is dropping and I'm feeling anxious about a recession. What can I do? Yet a look at early data suggests that instead of a sudden boycott of Treasury auctions, foreigners so far have been simply buying less new U.S. debt than in the past. Fresh details of a 3-year note Treasury auction during recent turmoil shows foreigners took only about 7% of the offering, which compares with a long-term average of about 12.4%, according to Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Capital Management. While relatively smooth 10-year BX:TMUBMUSD10Y and 30-year Treasury auctions from that same tumultuous patch help calm investors, LeBas said the 3-year results were a better gauge of demand for shorter-term paper typically favored by foreign central banks. More tepid demand from foreigners could keep upward pressure on Treasury yields, which can translate to higher borrowing costs for the U.S., businesses and households. Still, LeBas thinks any pockets of weaker foreign demand will be outweighed by other factors, including a lack of alternatives to Treasurys in global investment portfolios, as well as signs of a weakening U.S. economy and inflation concerns. 'Unlike the supply shocks of the late '70s and early '80s, higher prices in 2025 will probably destroy demand,' LeBas told MarketWatch after a quarterly report on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy shrank for the first time in three years. A recession isn't written in stone, LeBas said, but he thinks tariff-related price increases will weigh on the economy and consumers, proving unsustainable fairly quickly. Markets have found a calmer footing since Trump pivoted to a 90-day pause in early April, giving more time for most countries to engage the U.S. in negotiations before new tariffs take hold. Looking at how the chaotic month played out, the ICE U.S. dollar index DXY finished April 4.4% lower when weighed against a basket of rival currencies, according to FactSet. The 30-year Treasury yield BX:TMUBMUSD30Y ended at 4.68%, about 29 basis points above its low for the month, while the S&P 500 index SPX logged a 0.8% decline, after staging a sustained rally as the month drew to a close. Back in Treasurys, sharp outflows of foreign investors seen in early April also decelerated as tumult subsided, according to BNY iFlow data. 'At the end of the day, volatility will give you opportunities,' said John Madziyire, head of U.S. Treasurys and TIPS at Vanguard. But recent violent moves in bond yields also were a driver of the Trump administration's decision to pause and rethink tariffs, he said. Ongoing policy uncertainty likely means more tumult, Madziyire said. Felipe Villarroel, a portfolio manager at TwentyFour, said the safe-haven status of the dollar and Treasurys was not yet in danger. But shifts in asset allocation certainly look possible, especially as Europe focuses on beefing up defense spending, after a 'decade of everybody buying everything dollar-related,' he said. Treasury auctions matter at home and abroad, even more so in recent years when the U.S. has been amassing a large budget deficit that relies on new debt issuance to help fill the void. Foreign demand for Treasurys has been drooping for years, with the overseas share of the $28 trillion market near 30% at the end of 2024 versus above 50% in the late 2000s, according to Federal Reserve data. Trump wants tariffs to help bring manufacturing back to the U.S., which could reduce the trade deficit and result in less foreign demand for Treasurys. The Treasury Department on Wednesday said it would auction $125 billion via 3-year, 10-year and 30-year Treasurys next week. It also expects to keep a focus on shorter-term issuance in the coming quarters. The U.S. hit its $36.1 trillion borrowing limit in January, which means it has a little bit of wiggle room under 'extraordinary measures' to operate while Congress addresses the latest debt-ceiling episode. Estimates put the issue coming to a head between August and November. In the past, lawmakers have raised or suspended the limit, but several new proposals could terminate it entirely, potentially removing political brinksmanship and also opening the door for the White House to gain more power to borrow. While still at the proposal stage, the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee on Wednesday highlighted several negative aspects of repeated U.S. debt-ceiling showdowns in Congress, while laying out three alternatives, two of which would give the incumbent administration more authority to take action. Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert, said that while the debt-ceiling limit has become a 'political football,' any moves to take power away from Congress and put it in the hands of the president could lead to a situation where the 'fox ends up guarding the henhouse.' As it stands, spending to cover interest payments on U.S. debt already was pegged at $952 billion for fiscal year 2025, by the Congressional Budget Office, which projects it to hit $1.78 trillion in 2035. Beyond April's turbulence, Eric Stratmoen, a U.S. rates strategist at Payden & Rygel, said investors were trying to gauge what recent changes will mean to the standing of the U.S. globally over the next 10 to 20 years and for the Treasury market. 'The answer,' he said, 'is investors are going to want more compensation.' Read on: Wall Street could be facing a long bear market, this viral report warns. Here's how investors can prepare. Trump's tariffs are America's Brexit, says this strategist. These are the trades to make. If you read April's jobs report, you won't be surprised by the No. 1 'best job' in America My father is giving me $250K to buy a home, but told me not to tell my two siblings. Am I morally obligated to tell them? 'Money means nothing to my wealthy clients': My coworkers step on each other to get ahead. How do I create a nontoxic culture at work? 'She's kept him afloat': I'm 78 and leaving my daughter, 41, my life savings, but her partner is a mooch. How can I protect her? Sign in to access your portfolio
Spectator
30-04-2025
- Spectator
The enduring lure of Atlantis
When you picture Atlantis, what do you see? For most people, this mythic city is a classical arcadia sunk beneath the sea – fallen columns, shattered arches and perhaps even an aqueduct. But that is not the place described by Plato, the original source of the Atlantis myth. His version consists of an immense Atlantic island, many millennia older than the Egyptian and Babylonian empires. The popular image of Atlantis was created by Jules Verne in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. When that novel's narrator, Professor Pierre Aronnax, joins Captain Nemo on his underwater exploration, they encounter a ruined city. He notices temples and even 'the floating outline of a Parthenon'. Verne's Greco-Roman scenery has influenced almost all subsequent depictions of the city, right up to Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. But as Damian Le Bas observes: Instead of having the architectural style of a mysterious 11,000-year-old empire, Atlantis looks just like the places its creator, Plato, lived in… It seems to be accidentally admitting that is where the 'lost city' was really born. Le Bas became interested in the myth of Atlantis as a child. He was drawn to the idea of an underwater kingdom which mixed fantastical mermen with futuristic sub-marines. This interest revived as an adult when he began scuba diving after the death of his father. The Drowned Places is an account of a search for the city beneath the waves, an exploration of the lure of sunken settlements and a memoir of overcoming grief. The search is never very serious. Le Bas visits some of the classical candidates that might have inspired Plato's story – Santorini, Helika, Pavlopetri – as well as other well-known underwater cities: Baia, near Naples, and the flooded streets of Port Royal in Jamaica.
Telegraph
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
How to search for Atlantis in the 21st century
There is something singularly camp about the idea of Atlantis. Perhaps it's the way the drowned city is usually depicted – all Ionic columns and woozy, wobbly vegetation. Or maybe it's that every film featuring an underwater city is irredeemably naff: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Aquaman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. So it takes a brave writer to take on Atlantis, and to do so as soberly as Damian Le Bas in The Drowned Places, his poetic account of learning to scuba dive in search of the mythical kingdom. Atlantis is a portable myth, and for Le Bas, its trappings are simultaneously specific – 'a place of ruins: columns, arches, towers, walls caressed by soft blue light' – and hazily timeless. Little wonder, then, that it has been 'found' in locations as far apart as Greenland and Greece. In The Drowned Places, Le Bas's travels take him from Turkey to Jamaica's Port Royal as he visits places that – whether through natural disaster or man-made change – have been suddenly lost beneath the waves. Each spot illuminates a particular aspect of the Atlantis myth, though Le Bas is canny enough to state from the outset that his quest is for its metaphorical connotations. Throughout his search, Le Bas refers to Plato, the first writer to mention Atlantis. In the philosopher's Timaeus and Critias, Atlantis was a mighty civilisation on a continent-sized island in the Atlantic. It was ruled by a demigod, Atlas, son of Poseidon, who gave his name to the place: Atlantis nesos, the isle of Atlas. But Atlantis grew much too powerful, and its citizens were punished by the gods for their hubris with a terrible war and a cataclysm, which drowned them. Elements of Plato's story appear in almost every other retelling, and many have tried to map his account onto real-life floods and wars. However, the trouble with these theories is that they come from an attitude of patronising posterity. It's impossible that Plato simply made his tale up, these voices argue: he must have been drawing on actual historical disasters. It's easier, too, to believe that knowledge and technology spread around the globe via some long-vanished master civilisation that was submerged for its sins than to acknowledge that human development has been repetitive, chancy and ultimately unplottable. Le Bas is a nimble guide to this history, and if The Drowned Places were only that, it would be enjoyable enough. The trouble, though, comes from what else he tries to fit into the book. As well as a history of the search for Atlantis, The Drowned Places is an account of Le Bas's diving initiation – and of grieving for his father, who dies at the beginning of the book. In itself, such heterogeneity isn't an issue: Le Bas's first book, the Somerset Maugham prize-winning The Stopping Places, superbly braided together a journey around Britain with an exploration of his Romany heritage. But the disparate elements of The Drowned Places rub scratchily against each other. Like many contemporary landscape books, it tries to do too much. It can't simply be a memoir of grief, or an exploration of learning to dive – or even a guide to Atlantis. It comes apart at the seams. Still, Le Bas is a fine, vivid writer and his diving adventures are immersively told; I've read few better descriptions of the contradictions of the sport – its wonder and terror, its absurdity and grace. Struggling into a wetsuit, he can't decide whether it's 'a selkie skin, a superhero's costume, or a gimp suit'. He also provides plenty of fodder for the thalassophobic. Eighty feet down in near-zero visibility on a wreck dive in the English Channel, he loses sight of his dive buddy. 'When a scuba diver dies more often than not it is the panic which kills them,' he writes. 'It is two selves fighting: your animal self screaming, Get out of the sea now; and your diver's mind restraining, wrestling it back down.' You finish the book almost wishing he'd got himself into more sticky situations. Perhaps, though, it's hard to imagine Atlantis – or even write really crisply about being underwater – because these subjects take us so literally out of our depth. Several years ago, I took a liveaboard dive boat to an Indonesian archipelago. Surrounded by uninhabited islands, and with the full reach of the Pacific Ocean in front of us, it felt like the edge of the world. We descended and were surrounded by dozens of manta rays. They danced around us in columns stretching all the way to the surface. When we eventually came up, my diving partner turned to me and tore off his mask. 'F--k,' was all he had to say. I still don't think I could have put it better myself.
The Guardian
23-03-2025
- The Guardian
Travellers ‘stuck' while other minority groups in UK progressed, says artist
Roma, Gypsies and Travellers have not made as much progress as other minority groups in the UK because of deeply entrenched racist attitudes towards them, the Turner prize-nominated artist Delaine Le Bas has said. Le Bas, who has spent her career exploring themes connected to her Romani Traveller heritage, said that Traveller communities have been 'stuck in place' by stereotypes and hostile newspaper coverage. She said: 'Unlike some other different groups, I feel they've really been stuck in a place where they've not made a lot of progress forward. It's been really difficult.' The artist pointed out the recent allegations of false imprisonment, negligence and excessive use of force levelled at Greater Manchester police after Romani Gypsies and Irish Traveller children were stopped from attending Christmas markets. Children as young as 10 were allegedly forced on to trains that took them 100 miles from home. Le Bas said: 'I mean, the case with the young kids in Manchester was just quite awful … there have been some really bad incidents historically as well.' Entrenched anti-Traveller attitudes and negative press coverage focused on antisocial activity is partly to blame for the treatment of her community, said Le Bas, whose work often confronts those perceptions. 'I suppose what I'm trying to do is sort of counter-balance that, but also maybe bring some subtlety,' she said. 'Because I don't feel there's any subtlety around a lot of this stuff. I just feel it's either this or that, and there's all this stuff in between that no one really wants to talk about.' Le Bas said that she had seen other signs of anti-Traveller bias on her travels through Europe. Last year it was announced that the Berlin memorial in tribute to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma who were murdered during the holocaust was to be moved to make way for a train line. 'If it was any other memorial, it wouldn't be getting disturbed,' she said. 'I see a lot of hypocrisy.' Le Bas, who was nominated for the Turner prize last year, has taken over a former manor house on the Becontree estate in Dagenham, east London, for her latest project. Behind the door of the house in Becontree, which was once the largest housing estate of its kind in Europe and was used to rehouse people after the slum clearances of the old East End, Le Bas has created a world of installations that explore Traveller culture. Silver reflective paper lines the floor and a doormat made of images of cars passing by the front of the house, which is next to the main road running through the vast estate, greet you at the entrance. Over a six-month residency during which Le Bas relocated from her home in Worthing, West Sussex to the estate's White House, she created long, draped fabric with painted expressions such as 'gypsies, tramps and strangers: volume one', which was the name of a file she found in the property's archive. She has created what she called 'glass sandwiches', which are transparent picture frames that contain clippings from newspapers containing stories about Travellers. 'Sometimes it feels like you're eating a glass sandwich,' she said. 'Because of what you're having to read or listen to.' La Bas studied at West Sussex College of Design, where she met her late husband, the artist Damian Le Bas, also a Traveller, who died in 2017. The couple's son, who is also called Damian, is a celebrated author and broadcaster. The White House is run by Create London, which also helped establish the House for Artists project in Barking and Dagenham, which created affordable housing for artists who are encouraged to interact with the community they are part of.
