Daily Commentary

MarketMinder’s View: Today’s orders are tomorrow’s production. So while Taiwan’s April export orders are backward looking, they point to better-than-expected demand, particularly for technology products, though the data come with a huge caveat. (Also, as the article mentions a specific company making them, please note MarketMinder doesn’t make individual security recommendations—it is for illustrative purposes only.) “Export orders jumped 19.8% in April on the year to $56.4 billion for a third successive monthly gain, the economic affairs ministry said on Tuesday, exceeding analysts’ expectations of an increase of 10.0%. Orders for goods from Taiwan, home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker ... and other tech companies, are considered a bellwether of global technology demand.” Now, that caveat: These orders likely reflect some frontrunning. “The ministry said orders for April had been rushed in, probably ahead of any U.S. tariffs, so explaining the expectation-beating performance.” But we think this underscores prevailing sentiment toward Taiwan, Tech and trade generally. With expectations so low, it won’t take much to positively surprise, in our view.

MarketMinder’s View: This short article features a chart of consumers’ energy spending relative to their total. The takeaway: “In general, energy expenditures as a percent of PCE [personal consumption expenditures, the broadest measure of consumer spending] has been trending down for decades. The huge spikes in energy prices during the oil crisis of 1973 and 1979 are obvious. As is the increase in energy prices during the 2001 through 2008 period. In April 2025, energy expenditures were at 3.6% of PCE, down from 3.8% in March, and down from the recent peak of 5.2% in June 2022. This is below the pre-pandemic level.” Energy costs often grab headlines, but this helps put them in perspective: Their share of household spending isn’t as large as many think.

MarketMinder’s View: While this article focuses on a niche corner of global markets—how Russian oil exports evade Western sanctions—we think it helps illustrate a broader point about world trade today: that tariffs aren’t likely to undermine global commerce. Thanks to sanctions, Russia faces higher barriers to trade than most suffering from tariffs. Yet as the piece—and charts within—show, that hasn’t stopped its energy shipments. Why? When there are willing sellers and buyers, there is an incentive to overcome obstacles to exchange. In this case, “Ships hauling Russian crude are resorting to an increasing array of tactics to hide their activities while taking on cargoes. Automated position signals around export terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea and Arctic are disappearing more frequently than they did last year, or else showing vessels in impossible locations. ... The obscured flows coincide with a vast number of vessels falling under western sanctions. At one stage, Indian refiners—vital buyers of Russian barrels—said they’d avoid cargoes moved in any way secretively to get around sanctions. It’s not clear they’ve stuck to that approach.” The same, in our view, goes with tariffed goods. To reiterate, our analysis focuses on policies’ economic effects only—we aren’t opining on the political and sociological rationale behind sanctions or tariffs. But generally speaking, these types of measures don’t vaporize trade—they reroute it, as businesses utilize creative workarounds to avoid barriers.